What Marche de L'Empereur has to recommend: cute animals; a well-crafted soundtrack; a spectacular environment as beautiful as it is hostile.

Degrading all this are overly sentimental tones and a commentary (by Morgan Freeman) that superfluously anthropomorphizes the penguins, their predators, even the weather and darkness.

While it's extremely satisfying to imagine Hollywood suits falling over themselves trying to make more sympathetic animal documentaries in the wake of this summer's blockbuster abortions, ultimately March of the Penguins is a only a big screen version of a Lorne Green wilderness TV series.