Meryl Streep narrates this environmental IMAX nature film. Paul McCartney provides the songs. There is a warning about global warming projecting declining ice-coverage to the year 2050. This follows a mother polar bear and her two cubs. There are also other life such as the herd of caribou, underwater life, and the people of the north. There is one particularly intense scene as the polar bear family is chased by a large male. Otherwise, the animal photography is functional without being exceptional. There are some beautiful grand sweeping vistas. I would have liked more underwater filming of the tiny creatures. As a nature film, this is good enough. The environmentalism can be grating. Sometimes, it's not necessary to preach so much.

"To the Arctic 3D" is an IMAX 40-minute nature documentary from 3 years ago. 2-time Oscar nominee MacGillivray and Stephen Judson worked on many of these, so lack of experience certainly is not an issue here. same goes for narrator Meryl Streep. I think she mostly does a fine job. It's not great, but I liked how clear she spoke that even non-native English speakers like myself have no problem understanding the contents. I did not like the male narrator though. No idea why they had to include a second voice. In terms of the contents, it's not bad, but could have been better. Sometimes it felt artificially dramatic and there is one part with really bad music in the last third of the film that would have fit an animated movie for little children. No idea what they were thinking there. However, what we see is nice. The arctic is as beautiful to look at like the polar bears and the other animals in here. Some of the information are fine and new, but in terms of telling us something new this film also comes short. It partly makes up for that in terms of the emotion and display of maternal love we have here. All in all, a decent watch that still misses out on greatness though.

This IMAX film doesn't conceal the fact that it is a plea for reducing greenhouse gases to slow down the melt of the polar ice caps. Because, if the rate of warming keeps accelerating the polar ice will disappear completely every summer, and according to the writer of the script, Polar Bears will die out. Because they cannot live anywhere else.In keeping with this theme a good portion of the 40-minute running time focuses on a mother bear and her two 7-mo-old cubs. As the filmmakers make clear in the DVD extra, it was mostly good fortune, they happened upon this family of three that were not at all spooked by their boat. In fact at times they would come up to the boat and inquire. So they were able to study and film them for quite some time. Including an episode where, after mother bear killed a seal and the three of them feasted a big hungry male, twice the size of mother bear, set his sights on her cubs. But she was able to scare him off.The film also spent some time on the migrating Caribou and a newlywed couple who were tracking them. Also a brief comment about the underwater sea life being affected by the increasing acidity of the ocean.The film was narrated by Meryl Streep. I saw it on DVD and while not as spectacular as 3D in an IMAX theater, it indeed is a very good-looking film. But rather limited in its scope.

I'll be straight up honest I only went to watch this movie for the IMAX experience while I was visiting a museum. The images were definitely huge, though I was expecting better image quality. As far as image quality goes, I actually later enjoyed image quality of the trailer on youtube in 1080p HD more than that of the actual movie. Admittedly the giant screen does have it's impressive charm though and you can blame my disappointment on my ignorance of IMAX movies.As far as the movie goes it was pretty average though that doesn't exactly mean it was that bad. You got to see cool landscapes, and learn about the wildlife. I'm pretty sure the impression I have right now is exactly as the filmmakers intended; fascinated by the Arctic and sympathetic to the polar bears. I was disappointed at first, but in retrospect it was a decent made film, I was just expecting more than you can typically see on Animal Planet. It was also rather short. I also wish the environmental message was more subtle than it actually was.One thing I have to complement about the movie is the soundtrack. It was pretty good, in my initial disappointment I don't think I expected to be later searching for the songs online.In the end I give it a 5/10