Polar bears are really cleaning up on the big and small screens these past few years.  From Planet Earth to Arctic Tale to Frozen Planet the polar bear story has been captured from every possible angle.  Well…at least until now.  Now they are coming at you in 3D so bundle up and hunker down for a moderately entertaining call-to-eco-arms film masquerading as a family-friendly nature doc.

At a trim 40 minutes, To the Arctic: 3D is director MacGillivray’s latest contribution to the IMAX film canon he brought into the mainstream with his award-winning Everest.  With his lens trained on several inhabitants of the dwindling Arctic ice there seems to be less focus on our central subjects and more attention to the changing world in which they struggle to survive.  The angle here is, sadly, nothing new and the film comes off as yet another documentary showing us how terrible our actions have made it for these animals.

I don’t mean to imply that To the Arctic: 3D does not have a message that needs to be heard, investigated, or aided.  No, placing the spotlight on these ecological points of interest is a good thing – I just wish it wasn’t wrapped up in a movie that marketed itself in a different way.  What we end up with is a movie that feels heavy and sluggish despite its brisk running time because of too many shots with nothing much to look at.

Narrator Streep is, of course, impressive in her delivery of the preachy dialogue – her commanding voice and intuitive inflection is a great match with the chilly landscape and dangerous animals that are featured prominently in the film.  Also impressive to note is that Streep recorded her dialogue the day after she won her Oscar for The Iron Lady.  Here she sounds remarkably rested and positively serene…but then of course this is Meryl Streep we’re talking about.

Another slightly troubling aspect of the film is that it seemed a little intense to be rated G.  A few sequences wouldn’t have sat well with me when I was a child and the eating of seals and the serious threats of cannibalistic polar bears may not sit well with parents either.