The Elephant Queen

The result is a nice story about elephants but not much more, making The Elephant Queen feel a bit like a squandered opportunity.

The Elephant Queen is messy, but it's still a worthwhile nature watch that educates viewers on how important elephants are to the biomes across which they traverse and why.

A cute story about the circle of life.

A love letter to a gorgeous species that is increasingly in danger.

From intimate shots beneath the feet of the giant beasts to underground footage, directors Stone and Deeble have made a movie that leaves viewers as much in awe of the animals as of the filmmakers' ability to capture remarkable moments.

Not as tonally stable nor as thematically cogent as it could have been, but it does feature some child-appropriate scenes of animals relieving themselves, having sex, and even dying.

The documentary The Elephant Queen... is an emotional story about survival that shows us the wonderful mechanisms that operate in nature. [Full Review in Spanish]

Despite some Disney-style anthropomorphizing, this is a transcendent story of how African elephants cope with a drought. The subtitle might have been "Ecology of a Waterhole",

The best moments of The Elephant Queen come from when the elephants' actions on their own stir the heartstrings, complex emotions beaming off screen without anyone uttering a single word.

The powerful images are somewhat undermined by the narrative decision to protect the audience, creating a false image of a pocket of the world that humanity hasn't touched.