Wolves

This movie has very little to do with wolves, and much more about how the innocent Indians have been betrayed by the evil white man. If you're expecting a quality, National Geographic type of movie that explains the lives of wolves, this one isn't for you.

The film starts out kind of promising, showing how some cubs need to learn how to associate the smell of food with their prey. But the film quickly turns backwards, beginning to focus on one wolf that has been domesticated. Who really cares about this? This is an oddity, not the norm, and you should expect to see a documentary about wolves in their natural habitat.

This is a great short (40 minute), but very educational documentary on the history of wolves, their relationship with the native peoples of North America, & about their place in nature. I applaud the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) for putting this out. Yes, some scenes did contain captive wolves, but from what I saw in the video, it was stated out-front and made known that the wolf/wolves in a particular scene were captive. This video looks at both sides of the great wolf debate, & shares comments & views from people on both sides. It also contained cool footage of Natives dressing up & doing tribal dances. This video also explored the links between wolves, bison, & Native Americans; as well as white man's reasoning behind their determination to eliminate bison & wolves from the landscape. Overall, I would highly recommend this video, & believe it was a very well thought-out & balanced video. Again, job well done, NWF! p.s. The movie is a bit choppy in places, but I am guessing that is due to it being an online video. I do not know for sure, but I bet if you bought a DVD of this video & played it, there wouldn't be any choppiness.

Having two young sons, I'm always on the search for interesting and educational programming for them to view. They adore animals and absolutely loved CHIMPANZEE and African CATS (but scared them a little). I Googled "IMAX documentaries" and WOLVES was just one of the results, so I decided to preview it. Instead of an in-depth study of wolves as a species, what I got was more of a US history on the wolf. Though somewhat interesting, it didn't deliver the impact I was expecting and was therefore somewhat disappointed. If you're looking to learn about wolves in general, I would pass on viewing this film. If you're looking for a historical dialogue on how wolves fit into US history, you may be interested.

I felt deceived after seeing a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's "Fifth Estate" which exposed many so-called wildlife "documentaries" for using tame animals. 'Wolves' is one of these. They used tame wolves from "Animals of Montana Inc." This would be OK if they let the audience know in some conspicuous fashion. But to pretend all the shots are of wild wolves is to deceive he audience. Unfortunately, this is the way many wildlife docs are going as they strive to get better and better HDVD quality shots of animals in their "habitat". Either a) the production company doesn't want to spend the time to get these high quality shots of actual wild animals or b) the public is demanding such amazing photography that it is really only possible through use of tame/trained animals.

That's a bit of rant but - hopefully it is useful information.