African Cats: Critic Reviews

Not coincidentally, African Cats opens on Earth Day. Meeting these magnificent fellow creatures might be a fine way to celebrate.

There are surely eight million stories on the naked plains, but "African Cats" tells one: about lions and cheetahs and - oh, Bambi! - the power of mother love.

Some nice moments here, but this is a film that looks like a kids' TV featurette from an earlier age.

The photography is so spectacular that the accompanying Disney-ization of wildlife is forgiven.

"African Cats" prefers less preaching and more heartstring-tugging. It works, of course, especially if you're trying to raise your own cubs to adulthood.

Under the direction of BBC wildlife documentary alums Keith Scholey and Alastair Fothergill, "Cats'' looks majestic throughout, even if its Big Stories are sometimes forced at the expense of fleeting, fascinating little details.

If it maintains a superficially manipulative facade, the film remains committed to addressing the harsh realities of existence on the plains.

"African Cats," while often adorable and at times gripping, is more of a TV-ready experience.

Anyone with a fondness for bambinos of any species should melt at the sight of mamas with nuzzling cubs.

It's a solid hour and a half of intense stuff you don't see every day.

It's deeply involving and primally moving.

Astounding wildlife footage is given a kid-friendly narrative hook, but never overly cuddlified, in Keith Scholey's African Cats.

Kids will love "African Cats," which is full of "aw" moments. Their parents will appreciate that narrator Samuel L. Jackson keeps things from getting too schmaltzy in this true-life depiction of the circle of life.

It's not a put-down of the darker and more straightforward "Last Lions" to suggest "Cats" is to "Lions" what poetry is to prose.

No doubt, life is tough in the wild but, this being a Disney flick, it's loving too and even comes with a kiddie-friendly narrative that's easy to summarize and hard to dispute.

A story-driven wildlife doc where creatures become characters with names so young audiences can appreciate the natural cycles of life -- and death -- in the animal world.

Far too often, African Cats feels episodic in its structure. Rather than featuring a driving, compelling narrative, it's: cheetah vs. gazelle. And then: hyena vs. cheetah. And then: lion vs. crocodile. Who will win???

A visually and aurally stunning film that brings viewers up close and very personal with several "big cat" families - as well as a dazzling array of other safari-esque species - living in Kenya's sprawling Masai Mara National Reserve.

[G]orgeously photographed, astonishingly intimate... We have never seen lions and cheetahs like this before; you won't believe it can have been possible for cameras to get so close without disturbing the animals they're watching...

The clarity of the footage is often breathtaking; watching the mother cheetah setting off on a run will have your own heart pounding in expectation.

It's Kiplingesque nursery ethology, and one distrusts the editing.

A great story, shot throughout with infinite patience.

It is beautifully shot - the super slo-mo scenes of Sita running are amazing.

An attempt the dramatise the animal world which just feels cheap and unworkable. A drag.