Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.5

Africa Blu-ray Movie Review

Another must-own member of the BBC Earth family...

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown February 17, 2013

"As you've never seen it before" should be a familiar tagline to anyone who's ever watched a nature documentary. It's a tantalizing promise too often made, too often broken. But Mike Gunton and James Honeyborne's latest BBC Earth series is a different beast entirely. In just six engrossing episodes, Africa presents the untamed continent as you've truly never seen it before. Rhinos gather by moonlight to socialize and share an intimate conversation. Giraffes swing their heads like wrecking balls in a fierce battle. The landscape shifts and changes, forcing wildlife to adapt suddenly and desperately. Lizards hunt in the shadows of sleeping lions. Gorillas are marooned in isolated stretches of highland jungle. Frogs fight to take and hold coveted perches. Fertile volcanic ash breeds grasslands on an immense scale. Zebras clash and mole rats burrow deeper and deeper. Predators gather to gorge on sardines. Man co-exists with animal in a new ecosystem, where both conservation efforts, ecological threats and greed vie for supremacy. This is Africa, an absorbing BBC Natural History Unit/Discovery Channel journey of sights rarely seen and stories rarely told; some amusing, some heartbreaking, but all fascinating.

Sir David Attenborough steadies Africa with poise and charm. Too many nature documentary series are akin to a greatest hits reel, but Attenborough's narration provides a narrative; a through-thread the lends each episode cohesion and the full six-episode run momentum and purpose. It would all be for naught, though, if it weren't for the NHU photographers, whose tireless efforts, quick thinking and unparalleled luck result in jaw-dropping footage, much of which is unlike anything the BBC Earth series has offered before. Slow motion is employed to astonishing effect and never amounts to a gimmick. Daring camerawork and pure, old fashioned bravery lead to some of the most striking shots and sequences in recent NHU memory. Discoveries are made, studies are furthered and understanding is advanced. Moments of levity earn genuine laughs. (Just try to keep a straight face when, upon being spotted by a cheetah, a squirrel high tails it off camera. Funniest thing I've seen all year.) Moments of grief and sadness stir up real emotion. (Try not to tear up as a mother elephant sacrifices her own well-being to tend to her dying calf in its last hours.) And scenes of grace, power and wonder inspire legitimate awe. Of all the BBC Earth productions since Earth, Africa is easily one of the best and, without hesitation, a personal favorite. My only gripe? Six episodes isn't nearly enough.

BBC Africa Episode Guide:

• Kalahari: In Africa's ancient south west corner, two extraordinary deserts sit side by side. Water is in short supply, yet these deserts are somehow full of life because the creatures that live here have turned the rules of survival on their head. This film celebrates nature's ingenuity, no matter how tough it gets. In the Kalahari scrublands, clever meerkats are outsmarted by a wily bird, solitary and belligerent black rhinos get together to party and giant insects stalk huge flocks of birds. Rain almost never falls in the Namib - instead it must make do with vaporous, vanishing fog. The creatures in this, the world's oldest desert, have gone to the extremes, as spiders wheel to escape and a desert giraffe fights to defend his scant resources in the greatest giraffe battle ever filmed.
• Savannah: East Africa is a land which is constantly changing. To survive here, creatures must be able to deal with unpredictable twists and turns - wet turning to dry, feast to famine, cold to hot - no matter how hostile it becomes. From dense forests to snow capped peaks, steamy swamps and endless Savannah, this unique and varied land is also a haven for life, supporting large animals in numbers found nowhere else on Earth. But away from the familiar, forever-traveling herds, there are a huge cast of other characters - lizards that steal flies from the faces of lions, vast dinosaur-like birds who stalk catfish through huge wetlands, and an eagle who risks everything on the arrival of ten million bats from a far off rainforest.
• Congo: The very heart of Africa is covered in dense tropical rainforest. The animals that live here find the most ingenious ways to carve out their space in a claustrophobic landscape. Danger lurks in every shadow, but some animals thrive here, from honey-stealing chimps to birds with a lineage as old as the dinosaurs, thundering elephants and kick-boxing frogs. Here in the Congo, no matter how tough the competition, you must stand up and fight for yourself and your patch.
• Cape: Southern Africa is a riot of life and color because of two great ocean currents that sweep around the continent's Cape. To the east, the warm Agulhas current generates clouds that roll inland to the wettest place in southern Africa. To the west is the cold Benguela current, home to more great white sharks than anywhere else. Moisture laden fog rolls inland, supporting an incredible desert garden. Where the two currents meet, the clash of warm and cold water creates one of the world's most fabulous natural spectacles: South Africa's sardine run. This is the greatest gathering of predators on the planet, including Africa's largest, the Bryde's whale.
• Sahara: Northern Africa is home to the greatest desert on Earth, the Sahara. On the fringes, huge zebras battle over dwindling resources and naked mole rats avoid the heat by living a bizarre underground existence. Within the desert, where the sand dunes "sing," camels seek out water with the help of their herders and tiny swallows navigate across thousands of square miles to find a solitary oasis. This is a story of an apocalypse and how, when nature is overrun, some are forced to flee, some endure, but a few seize the opportunity to establish a new order.
• The Future: Attenborough comes face to face with a baby rhino and asks what the future holds for this little one. He meets the local people who are standing side-by-side with the wildlife at this pivotal moment in their history. We discover what it takes to save a species, hold back a desert and even resurrect an entire wilderness, revealing what the world was like before modern man.

Africa Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Aside from some minor but frequent video noise (primarily visible in the blazing Savannah and Sahara skies), a reasonable amount of filmic softness and some inherent camera/source anomalies (particularly during night scenes, underground shots or slow motion footage), Africa's 1080p/AVC-encoded video presentation is always impressive and often stunning. Colors are warm and natural, with vibrant blues, lush greens, lifelike earthtones and deep blacks. And detail, though not consistently razor sharp, is as revealing as can be expected (especially considering all the challenges of shooting a documentary series of this caliber). Edges are nice and crisp (with only a few instances of ringing per episode) and textures, scales, hair and fur are proficiently resolved, allowing the Natural History Unit photography to stand on its own merits without any pesky distractions. Significant compression issues are nowhere to be found either, and the only eyesores I noticed, again, trace back to the source, not a deficient encode. All told, the BBC Earth series continues to deliver some of the finest nature documentary presentations available, and Africa doesn't buck the trend.

Note: Despite being presented in HD, the ten-minute "Eye to Eye" behind-the-scenes featurettes attached to the end of each episode are of lesser quality. As such, aliasing, macroblocking and other problems are common. However, seeing as the featurettes amount to bonus content rather than actual extensions of the episodes, such shortcomings have not been factored into my analysis or score.

Africa Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

BBC Home Entertainment has granted Africa a full-fledged DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track and it's safe to say the series couldn't sound much better than it does here. David Attenborough's narration is clear, suitably centered and well-prioritized, while the sounds of the African plains, jungles, highlands, deserts, rivers and oceans are given ample opportunity to flourish. The LFE channel is restrained but never tame, lending support as needed with surging waters, brewing thunderstorms, deafening stampedes and the blows of various wildlife battles. The rear speakers aren't entirely aggressive either but certainly earn their keep, filling the soundfield with enveloping environmental ambience, subtle directionality and breezy cross-channel pans. Chases, hunts and clashes are particularly thrilling and decidedly immersive, and very little fails to satisfy. Ultimately, Africa's lossless mix is one of its greatest assets and shouldn't be discounted or dismissed.

Africa Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interviews (HD, 36 minutes): Interviews are available with Sir David Attenborough, series producer James Honeyborne, executive producer Michael Gunton and cinematographers Martyn Colbeck and Richard Matthews.
• Making Of Featurettes (HD, 68 minutes): A behind-the-scenes featurette is tacked onto each episode -- six in total, at ten to twelve minutes a piece -- that provides a welcome look at the filming of the series.
• Deleted Scenes (HD, 6 minutes): Additional scenes focus on the Harenna Forest and the Salt Lakes in Djibouti and feature narration by director Matthew Wright and director Nick Easton respectively.
• Outtakes (HD, 5 minutes): Rarely seen moments of levity with the BBC Natural History Unit crew.

Africa Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Africa is one of the best BBC Earth series to date, and in just six episodes at that. Attenborough's narration also anchors some of the finest Natural History Unit photography in recent memory, as Gunton and Honeyborne's team continually tops itself, capturing amazing sight after amazing sight; scene after scene, episode after episode, from the series' breathtaking beginning through to its thoughtful end. BBC Home Entertainment's Blu-ray release is a marvel all its own, with a terrific video presentation, an excellent DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track and two hours of solid behind-the-scenes content. Africa is one of the easiest Blu-ray purchases you'll make this month and rarely, if ever, disappoints.