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'March of the Penguins' will march right into your heart

Morgan Freeman's soothing voice opens "March of the Penguins" with the assurance that what you are about to see is a love story.

Believe him.

This is a story of love. It's a story of grief. Of endurance. Anguish. Survival.

Warner Independent Pictures 'March of the Penguins' A The verdict: Director Luc Jacquet tells a very human story about a group of penguins. Director: Luc Jacquet Narrator: Morgan Freeman Run time: 84 minutes Release date: June 24, 2005 Rating: G See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate "March of the Penguins"   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

It's also a nature documentary, a National Geographic film that is scrupulous about its science. But whether or not you care for cold, hard facts, you'll care about the penguins.

Director Luc Jacquet sees to that by masterfully manipulating your emotions. By telling a very human story. About a bunch of penguins.

Emperor penguins to be precise. Each year, they trek inland from the Antarctic coast to fulfill a mating ritual that is untold eons old. Waddling, sometimes sliding on their bellies, across 70 miles of frozen desert, the Emperors arrive in a frigid, barren valley where each will select a mate with whom to breed and raise, together, a single chick.

The narration calls this "a seemingly impossible journey." That doesn't do it justice. What occurs to these animals — and how they endure it — is nothing short of astonishing. Hunger from months of starvation. Cold so bitter than an unshielded egg will freeze before your eyes. Some scenes are so incredible you will have trouble believing they are true.

Believe them.

Jacquet's keen sense of storytelling endows the Emperors with anthropomorphic qualities. The penguins pout. They bellow. They strut. They resemble your neighbors, regardless of the fact they live at the other end of the earth — and are another species.

And let's face it: Penguins are strange creatures anyway. Industrial Light and Magic has nothing on nature. It's impossible not to chuckle at the penguins' odd appearance and even odder manner. It's just as hard not to be moved by their romance, which Jacquet portrays as tenderly as any cinematic love story.

Here, he's helped by an evocative original score by Alex Wurman, whose versatility as a composer is put to the test in a documentary demanding arrangements to accompany love, struggle, humor and death. Wurman's music replaces the original French score. Likewise, the script for the American release is considerably more than a mere translation; it's a different approach.

Freeman's narration is casual, but authoritative. His voice possesses a timbre that lends a tender, caring feel to this love story, as if your grandpa were weaving the tale for you by his fireside.

These sounds overlay stunning cinematography. The dazzling vistas of this ice-covered world are surprisingly awash in color thanks to the filmmaker's eye for variations in daylight, twilight and the eerie dark of winter in Antarctica. Through Jacquet's lens, the barren landscape never grows old. In one especially memorable scene, the camera pans to follow a seemingly endless line of innumerable penguins as they march through terrain that grows bleaker with every step. (Do yourself a favor and hang around as the credits roll: You'll be treated to scenes of the filmmakers at work with ice and animals.)

But the strength of "March of the Penguins" is in the penguins themselves. What is perfectly ordinary to these flightless birds is, by human standards, an extraordinary story.

Believe it.