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One Movie Punch


Nov 10, 2019

Hi everyone!

Welcome back for another week of reviews! We’re starting a new series this Sunday, one that will begin examining the films which will be exclusive to the emergent streaming providers. With the debut of AppleTV+ and Disney+ this month, along with the increased exclusive content offerings on all the major platforms, Sundays will become Streaming Sundays. Our initial episode will feature “The Elephant Queen”, now streaming exclusively on AppleTV+, part of their monthly movie offerings at least for the foreseeable future, and their first in an extended partnership with independent powerhouse A24. For one other nature documentary we’ve reviewed, check out “Disneynature: Born in China” (Episode #067), which will soon be available on that other sleeping streaming giant. 

Looking for an extra review for today? Head on over to patreon.com/onemoviepunch for a special review of “Hallowed Ground” in our likely never-ending series, “One Movie Punch Presents: Zero Percent”, where we watch and review a film that received the lowest possible score at Rotten Tomatoes. If you like what you’re hearing, please consider contributing to the podcast at any level. Every sponsor will have the opportunity to force me to review one movie of their choice, with just a few exceptions. All funds go to help paying our expenses and to help us grow with our audience. 

Before the review, we’ll have a promo from our good friends at the How I Met Your Friends Podcast. Every episode, Julie and Kathleen break down an episode of each show, providing interesting facts and conversation on a variety of related and unrelated topics. Don’t miss their recent guest review on One Movie Punch of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (Episode #610) as part of Reign of Terror 2019, where they give the narrator a brief taste of his own medicine!

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Here we go! 

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Today’s movie is “The Elephant Queen”, the inaugural film offering from AppleTV+, directed by Mark Deeble and Victoria Stone, written by Mark Deeble, and narrated by Chiwetel Ejiofor. “The Elephant Queen” follows the story of an elephant herd forced to leave their waterhole for another, facing multiple challenges as they cross the savannah. The documentary is a joint production of the United Kingdom and Kenya. 

No spoilers. 

The rise of the streaming giants has been an interesting process to watch unfold, from the industry’s mainstream birth at Netflix to the current launches and consolidations to happen in the next few years. Our family cut the cord when we moved to California, subsisting on unlimited DVDs at Hollywood Video and spending the difference on high-speed internet. We’ll be covering the rise of the streaming giants over the next few months, and the different approaches being taken, with today’s focus on AppleTV+’s debut offering, “The Elephant Queen”. 

“The Elephant Queen” is a safe debut film for AppleTV+ and their multi-project partnership with A24. Disney+ will be able to leverage its massive content library, barring existing streaming agreements, along with their acquisitions of Lucasfilm, Marvel, and most recently, Fox. HBO Max looks to be consolidating a number of disparate content offerings, again barring their existing streaming agreements. However, AppleTV+ is taking a ground-up approach, offering all exclusive content currently without streaming acquisitions, while still maintaining their rental and purchase platform for most other content. And one of the safest bets for any nascent content creator or distributor is the documentary, especially the nature documentary.

“The Elephant Queen” tells a cyclical story in the lives of the massive elephant herds of Kenya, shot over four years by veteran documentarians Mark Deeble and Victoria Stone, tracking the habits and progress of the elephants to tell the story of one particularly harsh cycle. Stone and Deeble have been making wildlife documentaries for decades, specifically in Africa, which is expertly leveraged into the documentary’s structure. We’re not just getting a documentary about elephant physiology, but their key place in the ecosystems they inhabit, sometimes in surprising ways. 

However, the real stars of the documentary are the animals being covered. The primary focus remains on the elephants, but we’re also introduced to the animals around them, including cannibalistic bullfrogs with weird foaming mating behavior, dung beetles battling over elephant dung, birds who eat the grasshoppers disturbed by passing elephants, and even a pair of terrapins. Video is captured from a variety of standard, and unique perspectives, including ground level, underwater, and even underground camera angles. And occasionally, especially with the dung beetles, we get some fun songs and sounds to embellish the fight. Chiwetel Ejiofor does a great job as narrator, using the right inflections to add to the story. 

Now, if you think this is a feel-good piece of edutainment, then think again. Given the ever-worsening climate, the effects on habitats around the world, and the increase in poachers for the ivory trade, the viewer is in for some heartbreaking scenes as well. This particular journey being documented happens during one of the worst droughts in the past four years, accompanied by substantial population reductions due to starvation and dehydration. Elephants are very intelligent and emotional creatures, with especially expressive eyes, so watching them suffer is difficult, if you aren’t completely dead inside. I cried over one death in particular.

“The Elephant Queen” is a solid documentary, but it also doesn’t bring anything new to the nature documentary, either. I’ve been watching nature documentaries since the 1980s, first on public television, and then on the cable networks, including some of Deeble and Stone’s previous work. Aside from the effects of climate change on the story, which is well worth documenting, and a few new camera tricks with drone shots and high-quality digital cameras, there’s nothing new. And there’s not supposed to be for this offering, which is likely to serve as an anchor for AppleTV+’s documentary offerings, or perhaps a larger division devoted to nature documentaries, to compete with Disney+’s recently acquired National Geographic content. And in that respect, “The Elephant Queen” is a perfect debut offering for the nascent streaming service.

“The Elephant Queen” is a well-made documentary about the lives of elephants on the African savannah. Victoria Stone and Mark Deeble transform four years of filming into a high-quality visual experience for all ages, utilizing new technologies to tell a pretty-standard nature documentary story. Documentary fans will absolutely love this film, but be ready to explain the harsh realities of life to some children. Okay, and maybe this adult as well.

Rotten Tomatoes: 90%

Metacritic: 67

One Movie Punch: 8.2/10

“The Elephant Queen” (2019) is rated PG and is currently playing on AppleTV+.