I Really Think They’re Dancing – ISLAND OF LEMURS: MADAGASCAR

Got a chance to screen Island of Lemurs: Madagascar, it has no relation to the hilarious computer animated Dreamworks animals we’ve come to love, but it’s smart marketing to make you wonder because of the name.

Island of Lemurs: Madagascar is a documentary on the real creatures who have been here practically since the beginning of time, scientists believe they survived the meteors that killed the dinosaurs and drifted from Africa on a little chunk of island to the bigger island of Madagascar located in the western Indian Ocean.

Once in Madagascar these Lemurs thrived and became many different species – over 100 different Lemur species, including some as large as Gorillas, unfortunately, those are now extinct, which is the fear of anthropologist, and conservationist Dr. Patricia C. Wright who has devoted her life to the preservation of these funny, dancing, flying, communal creatures.

Island of Lemurs:Madagascar was shot using IMAX®3D cameras, but the 3D glasses were weird, one side was darkened making it feel like you had a patch over one eye, luckily if you take the glasses off you can see the movie just fine, didn’t feel like we missed anything by watching it in 2D.

Of course when you want to make people care about something or add weight to a subject, nothing works better than having Morgan Freeman narrate. What’s going to happen when both he and James Earl Jones are no longer with us, guess all the voice over work will go to Dennis Haysbert.

The film is short, less than 40 minutes long, just enough time to introduce us to the dangers threatening these animals and to learn more about their habitats. I thought my friend’s 4 year-old son Nate would be mesmerized by these lemurs which are part monkey, part sloth, part koala bear, all cute, but he was bored 15 minutes in. I asked his mom if he ever watches Animal Planet and she says he does, so maybe it was just too early on a Saturday for him, he was anxious to get home to play Uno 🙂

Warner Bros. Pictures Island of Lemur:Madagascar is playing in theaters now.

Here’s a behind the scenes featurette:

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