Weekend Movie Forecast: The Soloist Vs. Tyson

Earth is a documentary about the climate changes causing increasingly catastrophic damage around the world. Jeannette Catsoulis at the Times says, "Leave it to Disney to make global warming as soothing as a full-body massage. In the grandiosely titled Earth, plundered largely from the BBC Natural History Unit’s magnificent Planet Earth, the filmmakers... take the temperature of our planet and conclude that it is rising. Blame James Earl Jones’s insistently cozy narration if the film makes that elevation seem as natural a phenomenon as the turning of the tides.

"But this is nature defanged and declawed for kiddie consumption, so the emphasis is on awwww-filled moments — mandarin ducklings flapping adorably from nest to forest floor, polar bear cubs slithering on ungainly paws — captured in spectacularly high definition. Even when the fangs are visible (a great white shark gobbling a sea lion in balletic slow motion) the blood is not, thanks to tasteful and customer-sensitive editing."