Life (2009)

During my sophomore year of college (or, at some point in '07 or '08), I bought the much-hyped Planet Earth series on DVD and enjoyed it very much. So much, in fact, that my only regret was not buying it on Blu-ray (or HD DVD, I guess, since that format was still around back then too). As beautiful as the footage looked on standard DVD, I knew it could only look better in HD. So when Life, another BBC nature documentary series, came out, I knew it was Blu-Ray or nothing for me. As you can see, it wasn't nothing. Now, in a nutshell, Life was a beautifully shot and very informative nature documentary just like its predecessor, Planet Earth. But it wasn't quite as good as Planet Earth, in my own humble opinion. Crisper and better-looking, for sure, but only because of the difference between DVD and Blu-ray. I dunno. Planet Earth just had the more memorable, more breathtaking, more jaw-dropping scenes. Also, while my Planet Earth set was narrated by the British biologist David Attenborough (whose voice is far more recognizable than his name), this particular Life set was narrated by Oprah Winfrey, and quite frankly, it suffered for it. Like, on Amazon.com, this DVD set has an enormous amount of one-star ratings, all of which say something to the effect of, "Why buy the Oprah-narrated set when the Attenborough one exists?" My own answer to that question is, "because this was 50% off at the local Borders when it was going out of business." But, yeah, had I had a choice, I'd definitely have gone with Attenborough's version. At any rate, you know whether or not you'll enjoy Life (and Planet Earth, if you haven't seen it) before you even start watching it. Are you a sucker for animal behavior and ecological studies? If so, you'll love this stuff. If not, your interest will wane at points. Either way, you'll get added entertainment if you watch it with someone like my girlfriend, who coos at baby animals and shrieks in terror at insects, snakes, jellyfish, crabs, squids, hippos, spiders, and 90% of living things in general. Bonus enjoyment if you get said person to drink a little wine beforehand so that the filter between thoughts and verbalized comments is at an extreme low. Good times. Oh, and one final gripe from me. The first episode of Life was essentially just a highlight reel of the nine episodes that followed. So, while the first episode was very cool, it meant the other nine each contained one or two scenes that you've already seen in the first episode. Lame, right? Not a huge deal, but still. Anyway, Life was good, but the gold standard for nature documentaries for me remains Planet Earth.