Elephant Tales
(2006)
Director: Mario Andreacchio
Cast: Patrick Bry, Aymeric Lecerf, Boris Ventura-Diaz
As I'm pretty
sure I have told you in previous reviews, I am a city person. I live
right downtown in my city, and every convenience that I could possibly
need is either a short walk from my apartment location or a short bus
trip away. That's how I like it, and I'm not going to change things any
time soon. Still, I realize that being a city dweller, I get to miss a
lot of things that people in the countryside get to experience on a
regular basis. There isn't a lot of plant life in my neighborhood -
mainly just a few trees planted at the edge of sidewalks. When it comes
to animal life, things aren't much better. Occasionally I pass someone
walking their dog, but that kind of animal is domesticated. When it
comes to observing wild animals, about my only choice is to look out of
my window and observe the birds that have gathered on the roof of the
building that my apartment building is against. There are a lot of
birds there, thanks to the fact that one of the tenants in my building
regularly (and illegally) throws bread crumbs out his window onto that
roof. Anyway, while those birds may be my only immediate choice in
observing wild animals, the birds give me a lot of interest whenever I
open my window to take a look at them. The birds (sparrows and
seagulls) have some fascinating habits. While the sparrows don't mix
with the seagulls (and vice versa), they do mix together in their own
groups. Sometimes I see several birds of the same species perched close
together and looking at each other with great intent. Sometimes a flock
of the same kind of bird suddenly takes off from the roof, with them
flying together to a new location in a formation that stays balanced
and perfect even when they abruptly change the direction they are
flying.
When I see such sights out of my window, I am
fascinated. Even if the birds seem to be doing nothing but looking at
each other, I can not help but wonder if they are communicating with
each other. Of course they are not communicating in the way that humans
do when they meet each other face to face - talking, in other words -
but I have to wonder if they are delivering bona fide messages to each
other. Sometimes I wonder what those messages would sound like if the
birds could actually talk out loud. Actually, they probably wouldn't
sound that intelligent. I remember reading a MAD Magazine article
parodying a PETA newsletter that had a story about a chimpanzee that
had been trained in sign language, and the PETA reporters of course
claimed that what the chimpanzee communicated showed intelligence. The
article quoted several statements the chimpanzee signed, which were to
the effect of statements to the effect of, "Ball monkey banana fun."
Though I do know some apes and monkeys in real life have shown some
ability to express themselves with sign language, I did get what the
article was essentially saying. Animals are not rocket scientists, and
if they could talk out loud, what they had to say would almost
certainly not sound very coherent. If horses can be conned over and
over to be slaves to humans and allow themselves to be ridden by their
human masters and do other back-breaking work, then certainly these
same animals could not reason well enough to effectively communicate
what they were feeling and what they were also thinking.
Despite all of this, we humans love to imagine animals
not only have the ability to talk, but that they also have the
intelligence to talk in a manner that makes them sound like reasonably
intelligent humans. Most of these imagined animal talking scenarios are
aimed at children, which isn't a surprise. Children have
great
imaginations and love fantasy stories, and they like their stories to
be a bit removed from reality so they don't have to imagine themselves
in the same predicament. The three little pigs may have been threatened
by a wolf, but it wouldn't happen to the human child hearing the story.
Anyway, when it comes to movies depicting talking animals, this adult
viewer often asks himself why the animals may talk
intelligently but commit physical acts that come across like those of a
typical dumb animal. Obviously, it's because it can be hard to train an
animal to act human. So I was not looking forward to watching the
children's film Elephant
Tales,
which promised to be full of talking animals. It was only the movie's
unusual pedigree - a co-production between Australia and France - that
got me curious to put the disc into my DVD player. Elephant Tales
takes place in Africa, and it concerns two brothers, a teenager named
Zef and his younger brother Tutu. Though Zef and Tutu are not human -
they are elephants, and are living happy lives on the African plains
with their mother and the rest of their herd. One night, Zef, Tutu, and
the rest of the herd's elephants are visited by what they call "The
Badness" - some incomprehensible evil force that makes loud noises and
bright lights. Zef and Tutu manage to get away from "The Badness", but
the rest of their herd disappears while the two brothers are in hiding.
Zef soon realizes that he and his younger brother must find a new
elephant herd to join if they are to survive, so they start on a long
cross country journey. They meet and take along with them during their
journey three other parentless animals: a baby giraffe, a lion cub, and
a young chimpanzee. But even having a party of five all working
together, there is still a danger that "The Badness" might strike
again...
Elephant
Tales
got a "G" rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, so
it's understandable that many parents coming across the movie may
conclude from that rating alone that the movie is safe for kids. On the
other hand, if you have closely read that plot description for the
movie that I typed out in the above paragraph, you will see that the
movie deals with some issues that can often be heavy for kids, namely
kids being orphaned and left to their own devices, as well as kids
being possibly threatened with losing their lives. So is the movie safe
or not for kids to watch? Well, if your kids were able to handle the
rough spots the Disney movie Bambi
had quite well, they should be able to get through this movie with no
trauma. The killing of Zef's and Tutu's mother happens out of camera
range (though gunshots are heard), though some younger kids may not
fully understand what happened to her. When the orphaned animals
subsequently start their journey, there's more of a feeling of
determination than sadness or panic with these creatures; they are able
to conquer various obstacles along the way fairly well. Kids in the
audience shouldn't get terribly upset at any point in the movie. So the
movie is pretty safe for your average kid, but will kids like the movie? I have an idea that
some kids - namely very
young kids - may enjoy it. The movie does have several appealing
elements for the young. Most obvious of them all are all the animals
displayed, which more often than not look cute and very appealing.
There is also the African backdrop, which may also interest them.
Probably the most appealing thing kids will find with Elephant Tales
is the fact that the animals up front and center in the movie are
thinly disguised human children. Kids will like seeing these youthful
characters conquer various obstacles, and find appeal with such human
aspects to these animals as the younger brother / older brother
relationship between Zef and Tutu.
So there is an audience for Elephant Tales
out there. However, I am not part of that select audience, and most
likely than not you aren't as well. I am an adult who has long left
behind my child-like ways, and that explains why I found the movie
extremely tough to sit through. For one thing, the characters were a
chore to behold. I could put aside such facts like the elephants Zef
and Tutu being the exact same size despite Zef being much older... the
fact that the Tutu was given the voice of a woman despite being male...
and that the entire animal cast had been given a variety of accents by
the human voice cast. But I couldn't excuse the gosh-darn awful
dialogue they were given. Tutu was downright annoying at times with his
frequent whining and general stupidity. His older brother Zef was
somewhat more palatable, but there were still plenty of things to
dislike about him, such as when he cracks jokes and brags not long
after his mother's death. The other animals that join up with the
elephant brothers also come across as unsympathetic, with the
chimpanzee bragging about being a king, the giraffe not wanting at
first to have to do anything with the other animals, and the lion cub
(who doesn't even get a proper name - he's just referred to as "Cub")
bragging about being a prince. The movie doesn't give these animals any
dialogue that endears them to the audience. For example, there is the
inevitable scene when Zef has to reveal to Tutu that their mother isn't
just "away". Instead of writing an emotionally-charged dialogue between
the two brothers, the movie has us instead listen to the two cheetahs
who have been giving occasional narration to the movie, who tell us
that Zef tells Tutu the truth. To add insult to injury, not only do the
cheetah narrators don't tell us how Tutu reacts to this news, the movie
immediately cuts to the next scene as if nothing major had just
happened.
I have a strong feeling that the reason why the animal
characters and their dialogue are so badly written is how writer and
director Mario Andreacchio (Napoleon)
apparently constructed the movie. Although there are some animal
moments that were obviously pre-planned (the chimpanzee does pull off
some mildly impressive tricks), there is a strong indication that big
chunks of the movie simply had Andreacchio pointing the camera at the
animals that were doing what came naturally to them. Then Andreacchio
screened the footage with his co-writers and then
wrote dialogue that tried to fit with what the animals were doing. This
would explain many things, especially about the many times in the movie
when essentially nothing of
importance or significance is happening. This is an extremely
slow-moving movie, and in part because of the snail-like pace, there is
absolutely no energy or tension to be found in any scene. Even the
scenes with the animals' encounters with "the Badness" just lie there,
and you don't feel a thing. Though Andreacchio doesn't just fail in the
director's chair with the utter lack of passion. There are some big
unanswered questions, like how one human is able to get a cage with an
elephant in it from the ground into the back of a truck. And there was
the unwise decision to make the movie a quasi-musical, unwise because
the songs are both bad and unmemorable, at their best sounding like a
third-rate Randy Newman imitation. While I did say that very young kids might enjoy Elephant Tales,
anyone will a more developed mind will more likely than not find it
really tough to sit through. I strongly suspect that the reason the
movie got the title it got was that it sounded exactly like "elephant
tails". And if you know the anatomy of an elephant, you'll know exactly
what lies under an elephant tail, and what it produces and covers the
tail with on a regular basis. Which is the same condition you'll find
with this movie should you unwisely watch it.
(Posted September 1, 2020)
Check for availability on Amazon (DVD)
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See also: Animals Are
Beautiful People, Sherlock: Undercover Dog,
Two Bits & Pepper
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