“The 3-D imagery heightens the experience. Kids and adults alike will be wowed by how the infant elephants and orangutans appear to be just an arm’s reach away.”

[By Mack Bates, Special to the Journal Sentinel]

The new wildlife documentary “Born to Be Wild 3D,” a coproduction of Warner Bros. and IMAX, undoubtedly has the shortest running time of any movie in commercial theaters.

But what it lacks in length, the 45-minute movie makes up in entertainment value.

That you come away from it more mindful of the striking similarities humans share with members of the animal kingdom – in this case, elephants and orangutans – is another of its strengths.

Narrator Morgan Freeman’s distinctive timbre and director David Lickley’s choice to shoot the film in IMAX 3-D instantly establishes that “Born to Be Wild 3D” isn’t your dad’s Discovery Channel special dressed up in big-screen clothing.

The movie juxtaposes the lives of two doctors doing some truly extraordinary work on opposite sides of the world.

World-renowned primatologist Biruté (pronounced beer-ooo-taye) Mary Galdikas has studied orangutans in Borneo for decades.

At her orangutan care center, she and her team have saved more than 400 orphaned orangutans endangered by habitat loss and returned them to the wild.

In Kenya, Dame Daphne M. Sheldrick, a leading elephant expert, runs a nursery for orphaned elephants.

Sheldrick and her team physically and emotionally prepare orphaned elephants to return to the Kenyan savanna.

She’s rescued more than 200 motherless elephants, most of whom were orphaned as a result of ivory-poaching.

It took her 28 years to perfect the right milk formula to properly nourish the infant elephants.

“Born to Be Wild 3D” proves an appropriate primer for parents interested in introducing their young children to the wonders of the animal kingdom.

In typical IMAX fashion, the film packs quite a bit of information and detail into its relatively brief running time.

Lickley, a biologist-turned-filmmaker with more than 30 nature and science documentaries to his credit, does an excellent job of making all that detail accessible.

And the 3-D imagery heightens the experience. Kids and adults alike will be wowed by how the infant elephants and orangutans appear to be just an arm’s reach away.

Born to Be Wild 3D ***

Behind the scenes: Produced and written by Drew Fellman. Directed by David Lickley.

Rated: G

Approximate running time:

45 minutes

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