Marching with nature's best: March of the Penguins is a family-friendly movie that instills a sense of awe at the resilience shown by emperor penguins as they procreate despite mother nature's harshest whims.

In the creation of the penguin we catch a special glimpse of God's sense of beauty, order, and humor. And in March of the Penguins we are treated to an absolutely captivating, astonishingly beautiful view of one of nature's (until now) secret life-cycle rituals that takes place annually in our planet's most forbidding environment.

Every year, mature penguins leave the sea and begin a remarkable trek across the Antarctic ice to their breeding grounds. March of the Penguins follows a group of several thousand emperor penguins on their arduous journey of 70 miles to one of these special places.

"Take it all in all, I do not believe anybody on earth has a worse time than an Emperor penguin," wrote Apsley Cherry-Garrard, a global adventurer and a survivor of Captain Robert F. Scott's doomed journey to the South Pole. After viewing this outstanding film you will, no doubt, agree with Cherry-Garrard's assessment.

Upon leaving their oceanic home, the penguins must waddle over miles of treacherous ice to the gathering place where they will find their mates. It is a frozen desert, a wasteland with temperatures of minus 70 degrees and winds of more than 100 miles per hour. They will be without food for months, living off their body fat and snow. Like salmon returning to spawn in the same creek bed in which they were hatched, an inner compass guides the emperors to the same mating place where they were conceived and born.

Enchantment and Tragedy

The sight of hundreds of penguins marching in single file is such an odd and amusing spectacle that it temporarily obscures the seriousness of the life-and-death struggle at the center of this incredible event. Upon reaching their destination--where a natural rock outcropping provides only slight protection against the polar winter winds--the penguins begin their search for a mate amongst the thousands that have gathered at the sanctuary.

Penguins are monogamous (for each mating season, that is), and their selection of a mate seems to be highly influenced by the mating call. Amidst a deafening cacophony, the penguin somehow finds his or her true love. The penguins' courtship is beautiful and tender, with singing, cooing, and nuzzling. The female produces but one egg, and then begins the real story of survival against seemingly impossible odds.