Whispers: An Elephant's Tale (2000)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Let's be realistic.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Hi There, I am the Grandmother of eleven beautiful Grandchildren. On Saturday, May 14th, 2005, My Grandchildren, their Mother's, and Myself sat down to watch "Whisper-An Elephants tale." This film is rated "G."We are all wondering if there might be some mistake in the rating of this movie. The children, their Mothers and Myself were very disturbed by the graphic detail of the human and animal behavior in this film. We were under the impression, according to the brief description of the movie on the back of the box, that we were going to watch something similar to Homeward bound. It even stated that. This movie was Not even close in comparison. Of course the many animals were wild instead of dogs and a cat. That would have been understandable, But Please this was a child's movie rated "G." There wasn't a warning of any kind of it's graphic nature. Anyway, a few minutes into this movie and you can see why we are concerned. A half hour further and it rose to disgust. We turned off the movie due to the terribly upset children. Their mother's and myself were in shock and did a double check on the back of the DVD box for the rating once again. My Daughter had the stronger stomach and watched a bit more to see just how bad it got. She was even disgusted at the graphic detail in the animal attacks. Just so you would know this, in case you didn't, we thought we would write to you and request that the rating be changed to "PG" so that other parents and children will be warned before hand and won't be left with those images in their heads like we have. We're not sure if this is the proper channel to follow to make this request or not, but if it isn't would you be so kind as to forward this to the one who can handle it for us. Thank You, so much, for your understanding.

When still very young, little elephant Whispers gets separated from his mother while they both flee from hunters. Whispers gets found by a group of elephants and forces himself under the wing of Groove - who wants to be more independent and find herself. The two set off on their quest to find Whispers' mother but the dangers of the jungle are never far away, whether they be man or beast.Stuck with several options for children's' movies on a UK bank holiday, I plumed to put this one on simply on the basis of the voice cast involved. The plot is the usual fare with `cute' baby elephant hunting for mother with a bigger, more cynical companion. The thin plot is only used to show the obstacles facing elephants in the wild and to do so in a cute sort of way that will win children over to the animals. In this regard I had to wonder why anyone would turn to this film for this purpose alone. A National Geographic show will look as good as this does and also show the elephants without having to give them voices and comedy characters. If I had the choice over I'd pick a different movie for children or pick a wildlife show for stuff about elephants. The material is not very funny and doesn't really engage, thus leaving it's value as one of the footage - something that a wildlife programme would do as well.The footage doesn't really fit with the voices and there are no animatronic touches to help it mix. The result is that the voices feel very separate from the animals and takes away from the characters again making it harder to really care about them or get into the story. The very Babe-like Whispers is played by Derryberry (who's name alone deserves a mention!); she plays it a bit too cutesy but it's fitting for a Disney film. Bassett deserves better than this but her voice work is good even if it doesn't fit with the images (true of all the characters). Lumley thinks this is below her and you can hear it in her voice, Archer is hard to catch, White is a weird addition but not as strange as Rivers, Tone Loc and Di Maggio. None of them manage to connect with the images onscreen and it is a problem that weakens the whole film.Overall this is not a very good film as the plot is basic and the voice work is separate from the images, making the characters difficult to engage with. The film looks great and has tonnes of good nature footage but there are better places to go to get this, leaving the film rather lacking in any specific value and only having the stars and the name Disney to attract those to it.

I love Disney movies I love ElephantsThat's what this movie is all about. Unfortunately I felt the movie was just way to negative, and put me in a sad mood. The movie just kept pounding the message on how badly Elephants in the wild got it. Sure Elephants are hunted, and that is just wrong. But most elephants just don't have it that bad. To the movie makers, please lighten up. My vote 2 out of 10

1st watched 12/14/2001 - 4 out of 10 (Dir-Dereck Joubert): So so tale of an elephant from birth to young adulthood and all his wonderful adventures.(aka. Losing his mother, losing his best friend, getting attacked by lions, getting attacked by the takers[human hunters] etc.) There is so many rough times for this elephant named Whispers that when you're done watching you're glad you're not an elephant. But seriously, this movie uses the same basic storyline of many better kids movies(Aka. Land Before Time, Homeward Bound etc.), a quest for a better place which for this elephant would be with his mom whom he lost early in the movie. No matter where they go they are stalked by lions and humans so I'm not sure there is any safe haven which is the point of the movie(family is the answer no matter where you are) but despite the attempt to have a genuine positive ending the movie still leaves you depressed, but not ready to stop elephant killers(which I think was the 2nd reason for making the movie). The bottom line is that this movie is ok, but I don't even think it's done well enough for even kids to get through even though the movie is only 72 minutes long.