{2jtab: Movie Review}

The precarious life – and struggle to avoid death - of the Loggerhead Sea Turtle is illustrated beautifully in Nick Stringer’s Turtle: The Incredible Journey, a film that began its own North American sojourn back in 2009 at the Toronto International Film Festival and now spreads its flippers for a rigorous theatrical expansion.

The advent of smaller, better, and higher-resolution cameras has resulted in a reciprocal explosion of stunningly filmed and intimately involved nature documentaries within the last several years. Discovery Channel’s Life comes first to mind. Properly equipped photographers can now gain much closer and less obtrusive access into the secluded world of nature’s most reclusive critters. Hence, securing a theatrical release – and getting people to buy tickets – in what is becoming an over-saturated market is now a much more difficult proposition. Though Turtle: The Incredible Journey is a truly stunning and remarkably narrated nature documentary, it’s really difficult to separate it from the clutter and recommend catching it during its theatrical run.

Stringer, with his film crew led by Cinematographer Rory McGuiness, chronicles in stunning detail the birth, early life, and return to its Florida birthplace more than two decades later of the loggerhead turtle. The cameras intimately capture young, tender hatchlings as they emerge from the frothy sand, and begin their dangerous 9,000-mile journey, avoiding flesh-hungry ghost crabs, dive-bombing seagulls, and long-line fishermen along the way.

The account, soothingly narrated by actress Miranda Richardson, quickly settles upon one particularly resilient female turtle that manages to scramble through the predatory war zone and make its way to the ocean’s edge.  Once there, the turtle – I’m so glad they avoided the allure of “Disney-fication” by not naming the turtle – will ride the strong currents of the Gulf Stream and swim the North Atlantic and Sargasso Seas for years before heading back through the Azores to the Caribbean, guided only by millions of years of ancestral instinct. Only 1 in 10,000 will survive the ordeal, so it is truly an incredible journey.

The turtle’s travels, often exaggerated by the melodramatic narration, ends with the film’s money shot, and the most impactful point of the story, which shows our battle-wisened heroine returning to the very beach where she was born… some 25 years earlier!

Yes, Turtle: The Incredible Journey is a gorgeous spectacle and a lovingly created tribute to this cherished endangered species, but a quick flick of the remote will render no fewer than five or six equally fantastic nature docs, each with its own similarly important plea for ecological recognition and preservation. Too, the questionable use of numerous turtle stand-ins, fabricated danger (including cgi-created sharks), and the imposition of human motives onto our reptilian heroine, while necessary to illustrate the twenty-years-in-the-making story, are enough to strain the credibility of a documentary, even if the genre is of questionable integrity in the first place.

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{2jtab: Film Details}

MPAA Rating: G for General Audiences
Director: Nick Stringer
Writer: Melanie Finn
Cast: Mirand Richardson (voice)
Genre: Documentary
Memorable Movie Quote: "But the land did not want to let them go. "
Tagline: An Epic Adventure from Emmy Award Winning Director Nick Stringer.
Distributor: Hannover House
Official Site: www.turtle-film.com
Release Date: July 8, 2011 (limited)
Blu-ray Release Date: No details available

Plot Synopsis: The story of a little loggerhead turtle, who follows in the path of her ancestors on one of the most extraordinary journeys in the natural world. Born on a beach in Florida, she rides the Gulf Stream all the way to the frozen north and ultimately swims around the entire North Atlantic to Africa and back to the beach where she was born. But the odds are stacked against her; just one in a thousand turtles survive the journey.

Along the way she faces many hazards, she loses her brothers and sisters in the Sargasso Sea, comes face to face with creatures of the deep and nearly dies at the hands of fishermen. A sunfish guides her to safety and a humpback whale shows her the way north. And when she finally reaches the frozen north, she sees the greatest celebration of life on the Earth; but she also discovers deep and powerful changes happening in the oceans - the ice is melting and sea levels are rising; it could halt the Gulf Stream, flood the turtle’s birthing beaches and end a way of life.

Then her calling comes, she must return home.

Under a million stars, she crawls out of the sea to lay her own eggs and keep the Turtle’s alive. Turtle: The Incredible Journey has all the elements of a great epic – suspense, adventure, despair and hope. The film will appeal to a wide family audience. Turtles are likable and loving animals and are especially adored by children.

The film will be shot as a natural history film but key scenes, in particular the interactions between the characters, will be digitally created with the latest in special fx and blue screen technology, but ultimately the film will have the look and feel of a natural history film.

Turtle: The Incredible Journey and its characters are based on the true story of the loggerhead turtle, which is cast adrift on the Gulf Stream and sent on the ultimate odyssey around the North Atlantic.

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{2jtab: Blu-ray/DVD Review}

No blu-ray/DVD review available

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{2jtab: Trailer}

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