Knut & Friends (Knut und seine Freunde) (Blu-ray Review)

December 8th, 2009 Blu-ray-au Posted in Blu-ray Movie Reviews | Comments Off

Knut & Friends (Knut und seine Freunde) (Blu-ray Review)

Forget swine flu, Knut fever has finally made its way to the U.S.

?Oh my goodness, look at those paws?Casey, I want one?Look at him trying to walk?So so cute?I
want a polar bear to suckle on my finger.? These are word-for-word transcriptions of the squeals of
delight my wife would make every time she popped into the room while I was watching Knut &
Friends, a documentary about the first polar bear in thirty years to be born and survive in
captivity at the
Berlin Zoological Gardens. The weird thing is, it was me who was calling her in every fiv…

Video

Knut & Friends tumbles onto Blu-ray with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that?s incredibly
inconsistent, mostly because the documentary mixes 35mm film photography with high definition
and standard definition video sources. The sections that follow Maidu and her cubs are quite
detailed. Fur texture is nicely rendered, clarity is crisp across the frame, and the arctic whites and
blues are perfectly reproduced. There are some stunning landscapes here, especially one time-lapse
…

Audio

There?s not a lot to say about Knut & Friends‘ DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track,
other than it does what it needs to and not much more. The narrator?s voice cuts cleanly and
intelligibly through the mix, the bears? various grunts and bleats and groans are recorded on-
location and mostly un-muffled, and the surround channels are given some light homework, putting
out some woodsy ambience and whipping wind through the rear speakers. The music, however, is
almost indescribabl…

Supplements

Unfortunately, there are no supplementary features included on the disc.…

Final Words

Knut & Friends doesn?t exactly tell the full story?it glosses over the controversy of the
bear?s birth, the tragedy of his lonely adolescence, and the on-going dispute over the profits he
generates for the zoo?but it offers a cute ?n cuddly, family friendly experience that will satisfy most
younger kids. If you?ve got a burgeoning animal-lover at home, Knut & Friends is at least
worth a rental.……

Read full review: Blu-ray.com