A crocodile ripping up a cub off screen, a one-eyed lioness scheming for revenge, a mother taking down a water buffalo so her children don't starve - it's a bit more pulse pounding than March of the Penguins. But documentarians Dereck and Beverly Joubert crafted The Last Lions with a similar aim: to humanize animals so viewers will sympathize with their struggle. After a new pride of lions invades, we follow Ma Di Tau, a single mother who must guide her three cubs across a crocodile-infested river to the Duba Island, where she hopes to raise her progeny in the midst of hyenas, elephants, and a foreign pride eager to expand its territory. Sporting impressive footage that captures sunrises, wildfires, and stampedes, music that morphs from Mission Impossible chase-scene scores to mournful African a cappella, and the melodramatic narration of Jeremy Irons, The Last Lions turns Duba Island into a theater of survival, love, and adaptation.
