Why you can trust GamesRadar+
As a wise, silver-haired sage once intoned, ""Pointy birds, oh pointy pointy"." Well, actor-turned-director Jacques Perrin's latest naturama has pointy birds, flighty birds, fighty birds, dainty birds and oh-so-many-morey birds. Like his excellent bug-epic Microcosmos, this three-years-in-the-making account of avian migration contains no Attenborough-esque explanations, instead opting to let its beautiful visuals do all the work while hinting at dialogue-free mini-plots concerning its beady-eyed subjects.
Well, most of the time. It's thrilling to follow a flock of geese in flight (Perrin used balloons, mini-planes and gliders to pull off some of his spectacular shots); amusing to see penguins fall arse over beak; and upsetting to watch a bird with a broken wing be hunted down and killed by a pack of crabs. But Perrin's taste in music sucks. Childlike soprano chirpings pierce the eardrums while Clannad-style warblings scrape a cheese-grater across the brain.
On Microcosmos, this was just about bearable. Here, it ain't. Then there's his predilection for inserting the occasional nose-wrinklingly pretentious voiceover, plus a feather-brained decision to include the odd visual effect, which, in contrast to nature's own work, looks rather crass.
But Winged Migration will still impress, whether you're dive-bombing with gannets or watching a ballet of preening storks. If you can turn the sound down in your head, that is.
The Total Film team are made up of the finest minds in all of film journalism. They are: Editor Jane Crowther, Deputy Editor Matt Maytum, Reviews Ed Matthew Leyland, News Editor Jordan Farley, and Online Editor Emily Murray. Expect exclusive news, reviews, features, and more from the team behind the smarter movie magazine.
Former Blizzard boss says the $700 PS5 Pro is really more like a $350 upgrade because it's aimed at people who can trade in their PS5s at "places like GameStop"
Diablo 4 may have peaked because players are now dealing literally infinite damage on the PTR server, and by players obviously I mean a Whirlwind Barbarian
Indie dev horrified to realize their protagonist is coded as Lois Griffin from Family Guy: "Nobody told me ... I worked 3 years on this game"