By Olivia Davies

March of the Penguins, Luc Jacquet's superbly photographed documentary love story to the endurance of the Emperor penguins of the Antarctic, captures in intimate detail the birds' yearly migration from the waters where they live to their breeding grounds across the ice. From the tireless stoicism of their initial journey, through the poignancy and tenderness of the couples' intricate courtship rituals, to the heart-wrenching images of lone chicks lying frozen on the barren wind-racked wilderness of ice, the film portrays, with profound beauty, the precariousness of the Emperors' lifecycle and the perils they encounter at each stage of it. Its highlights include the images of the march itself: the birds wiggling stiffly along like upright beavers or canoeing on their bellies, the amazing photographic close-ups of their plumage and expression during the courtship, and anything involving the fluffy grey penguin chicks – surely the stars of the film, all enhanced by Morgan Freeman's wonderfully unhurried and rich narration and Alex Wurman's lovely original score.

Although following the traditional narrative structure of a wildlife documentary - tracing the adult penguins from their first march in early spring to their final return to the sea in November - Jordan Roberts has written a narration which is not the usual mass of scientific details, but rather seeks to humanize the birds, explaining their hardships and reactions in terms of familiar emotions. Together with the stunning photography, this creates moments of considerable drama and allows us to enter into the struggles of our characters. However, there is no doubt that this tendency also encroaches on our ability to distinguish between scientific fact and emotive interpretation, and the filmmakers' overarching description of the film as the “story of a species ready to make every sacrifice to give love” disregards, by a prescription of unlikely motives, that the arduous trek and time spent on the ice each year amount to the birds' raison d'etre: the propagation of their species: as well as being an integral part of their lifecycle.

Emperor penguins brave the treacherous icy landscape.

Nonetheless, this in no way detracts from the undoubted passion and skill of a committed and extraordinary film crew; in particular the Co-Directors of Photography, Laurent Chalet and Jerome Maison, who spent 13 months at the French Antarctic research station DDU in order to capture this exceptional footage.

‘March' is a timely film, now that the habitat of Antarctic penguins in constant flux, and there are definite benefits to seeing these extraordinary pictures on the big screen, where they can be fully appreciated; however, it is unclear how large a theatrical audience this kind of documentary will attract as, however interesting a tale and however beautifully photographed, it still lacks the constant ‘wow' factor inherent in such successful theatrical releases as Microcosmos.

March of the Penguins is rated "G" and opens on June 24th.