The Upcoming
  • Cinema & Tv
    • Movie reviews
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Show reviews
  • Music
    • Live music
  • Food & Drinks
    • News & Features
    • Restaurant & bar reviews
    • Interviews & Recipes
  • Theatre
  • Art
  • Travel & Lifestyle
  • Literature
  • Fashion & Beauty
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Competitions
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureMovie reviews

David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet

David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet | Movie review
28 September 2020
Jake Cudsi
Avatar
Jake Cudsi
28 September 2020

Movie and show review

Jake Cudsi

David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet

★★★★★

Release date

28th September 2020

Certificate

UPG121518 title=

Links

TwitterInstagramFacebookWebsite

There’s a reason why David Attenborough has been voted the most trustworthy Briton and is regularly crowned one of the most beloved figures in our history. His shows on natural life have enriched the lives of generations, entertaining and informing the nation. While his programmes were always educational, they didn’t ask much of their audience. People trust Attenborough and, in turn, he generally plays the part of an impartial, inoffensive presenter of facts within the animal kingdom. This has changed, partly because the reality Attenborough presents and reports on is changing (or, at least, our understanding of it is developing), and there is no way to hide this fact other than by intentionally misleading or misreporting, something Attenborough is incapable of.

A Life on Our Planet is Attenborough’s “witness statement”, as he puts it. The truths are undeniable, and the urgency of his message points towards the gravity of the environmental situation we all find ourselves in. Previously, Attenborough acknowledged the reality of climate change but opted not to spend too long examining its devastating impact. In this movie, he realises the finite but essential space available to animals in the 80s and is made aware of the cruelty of humanity’s greed for land soon after when he witnessed the plight of the orangutans in the name of palm oil production. However, this terrible human impact on the animal planet was only first seen after the turn of the century. By the time of Our Planet (2019) and Blue Planet II (2017), Attenborough was spending more and more time teaching viewers of this bleak reality and the perilous future we all face. Still, A Life on Our Planet is by some distance his most acerbic, alarming and essential production yet.

Interweaving his past experiences with the continued degradation of our natural planet, Attenborough warns of an impending “sixth mass extinction” (the fifth being the blast that killed off the dinosaurs). This feature is littered with stark warnings such as: “human beings have overrun the world”, and that “we haven’t just ruined” our natural environment, “we’ve destroyed it.”

But fearful of scaremongering, A Life on Our Planet invests a lot of time into what can be done to stop this near-irreversible trend of destruction. Attenborough sets store by forward-thinking, ambitious, yet simple strategies to counter the unsustainability of modern civilisation. Rewilding, education, renewable energy and plant-based diets are heralded as the path towards planetary redemption. Much like these proposals, Attenborough’s piece is simple in its explanatory method of informing and warning viewers. It’s ambitious, hopeful and necessarily shocking and powerful. A Life on Our Planet may not have the kaleidoscope of colour and awe-inspiring beauty of the nature presenter’s previous documentaries, but it is his most impactful and important film to date.

★★★★★

Jake Cudsi

David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet is released nationwide on 28th September 2020.

Watch the trailer for David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet here:

Related Itemsfeaturedreview

More in Movie reviews

Top Gun: Maverick: “A triumph that should be enjoyed in the largest possible cinema”

★★★★★
Filippo L'Astorina, the Editor
Read More

Emergency

★★★★★
Umar Ali
Read More

The Road Dance

★★★★★
Matthew McMillan
Read More

Rhino

★★★★★
Catherine Sedgwick
Read More

The Innocents

★★★★★
Emma Kiely
Read More

Benediction

★★★★★
Lauren Devine
Read More

This Much I Know to Be True

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin)

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

Vortex

★★★★★
Joseph Owen
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Movie and show review

Jake Cudsi

David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet

★★★★★

Release date

28th September 2020

Certificate

UPG121518 title=

Links

TwitterInstagramFacebookWebsite

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Alice Cooper at the O2 Arena
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Decision to Leave (Heojil Kyolshim)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • The Five Devils (Les Cinq Diables)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Stephen Fry enters the Radio Times Hall of Fame in conversation with Alan Yentob at the BFI Imax
    Cinema & Tv
  • Roma Bar Show returns for a second edition in Rome next week
    Food & Drinks
  • “It was a really precious process”: An interview with Maksym Nakonechnyi on Butterfly Vision
    Cannes
  • Stranger Things: Season Four
    ★★★★★
    netflix
  • Henry VIII at Shakespeare’s Globe
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Stars at Noon
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Nostalgia
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Nostalgia
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Fiend in Notting Hill: “Risks that pay off”
    Food & Drinks
  • Alice Cooper at the O2 Arena
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Michael Kiwanuka at Alexandra Palace
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • The Innocent (L’Innocent)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why
With the support from:
International driving license

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

You Should Have Left | Movie review
The Forty-Year-Old Version | Movie review