Tiger (now streaming on Disney+) is the latest Earth Day documentary from Disneynature, the Mouse House sub-studio that’s all about save-the-animals ecological conservation, and not to be confused with a certain corporation’s sprawling consumerist theme parks whose environmental footprint is probably astronomically bad. But we’re not here to talk about hypocrisy – not too much, anyway. No, we’re here to ogle BABY TIGERS, and specifically BABY TIGERS that romp, gambol and cavort until we can’t effing STAND the cuteness anymore. Sure, Tiger is about more than just the widdle striped kitties, but they’re the main draw here, more so than Priyanka Chopra Jonas’ narration or the dynamics of tiger life in India. Although to be honest, the latter part is pretty fascinating, too.
TIGER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: The forests of India. This is where flying foxes flap and monkeys diddlefart and elephants roam. But it’s also where tigers hang out and stalk and hunt and bathe and sleep and, most importantly, MAKE BABY TIGERS. We meet our protagonist Ambar, a 400-lb. female who has done that last thing remarkably well, because out from a crevice in the rock tumbles not one or two or three but four BABY TIGERS. They’re two weeks old. Here, have some oxygen and smelling salts, maybe a drink of water, since you took one glimpse at the fuzz and heard the little yowls and passed out. Will you be able to handle all the frolicking to come in the next 80-odd minutes? Your verisimilitude is about to be tested, my friends.
The next thing that happens is something I’m convinced is a mistake: Chopra tells us the cubs’ names. This is a conundrum, because we need to differentiate the four snuggly-wuggly fuzzlumps, but you also know that Nature’s Way is cruel, and naming adorable things ups the ante on our emotional well-being, since the survival rate of these little guys isn’t always great. Chopra warns us as much, sharing that a litter of four is pretty unusual, a vague scientific almost-fact that these Disneynature movies tend to dole out in lieu of specific scientific facts. (Google sez the average litter is two or three.) Anyway, now is probably a good time to press pause and fetch the tissue box, so go ahead and do that, and when we come back, we’ll get into the nitty gritty of hunting and roistering and surviving and romping.
You back? OK. Mama Ambar has her paws that look like giant clawed catcher’s mitts full with four little ones. They drink a lot of milk, which means she’s got to hunt hunt hunt the deer that are often all-too-alert when it comes to roaming tigers. Nineteen out of 20 hunts fail, Chopra tells us. Hunger isn’t the only threat they face, either. A massive python would love to – ulp – swallow a tiger kitty whole, but Ambar chases it off. And the king around these here parts is a brute named Shankar, the alpha tiger who outweighs Ambar by a couple hundred lbs., chased off the cubs’ father and isn’t too keen on some other dude’s ex and kids living in his territory. Ambar does all kinds of sneaky stuff to keep the cubs hidden from Shankar, including luring the horny bro away for a week’s worth of tiger nookie, a sneaky trick considering he wants to profligate the species but doesn’t know she recently gave birth, and therefore isn’t fertile. See, humans aren’t the only ones on this planet who play hormone games.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The Jungle Book, duh. The real-life counterparts of Shere Khan even have to contend with a Baloo of sorts here, a sloth bear that tangles with Shankar and… wait, is there a Bear Vs. Tiger bout here? Yep. (Also, there’s a making-of-Tiger doc that simultaneously debuted on Disney+ titled Tigers on the Rise, which is more science-y, contextualizing the tigers’ lives and spending some time with conservationists, filmmakers and other humans committed to the cause.)
Performance Worth Watching: Setting aside the obvious BABY TIGER components of the film, our runner-up for Performance Worth Watching is the contingency of frogs who hop on a tiger’s back to eat the flies that gather in the heat. Or maybe the terrifying, dead-eyed mugger crocodiles that prowl around, competing with tigers for apex-predator status.
Memorable Dialogue: This is what drives me nuts about these movies – the vague lite-facts in the narration frequently make way for cutesy anthropomorphization: “It’s the first day of jungle school!” Chopra chirps. Or, “Uh oh – hiccups!” Sure, the tigers are cute as all shit, but infantilize them at your own risk, bub.
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: Remember: this is a Disney film, so don’t be surprised when the Bear Vs. Tiger showdown shies away from blood and other disturbing realities of nature. It’s disappointing compared to something like Planet Earth, which didn’t flinch at the sight of a deadly hunt. And so we get goofy frogs and backflipping monkeys, brief tangential diversions from the main narrative – and dozens upon dozens of how’d-they-get-that-shot shots, the result of insanely dedicated filmmakers who embedded themselves in the jungle for lord knows how long so these tigers don’t run away when they catch a whiff of some Arrid Extra Dry.
As a mild enthusiast for nature docs, I come to these things for those awesomely intimate shots, and the gorgeous cinematography (e.g., scenes of bioluminescent insects turning the nighttime jungle into a disco of sorts). The film works its way through roughly 18 months of mother-and-her-cubs life before she kicks them out of the house, and what emerges is a pretty compelling story about tiger relationship dynamics – the motherly-love stuff is predictable and ever-present, but the relationship between Ambar and Shankar turns out to be quite the rollercoaster love story. Thematically, the film is substantive and observational enough to compensate for the annoying narration and dearth of hard science (note: a few more legitimate facts and less cutesy stuff goes a long way). But if all you’re here for is TH’ KITTEHS, consider it time well spent.
Our Call: Even taking the aforementioned criticisms into consideration, the bottom line is, if you’re not into watching tiger cubs wrestling and chasing monkeys up trees, you’re probably a serial killer. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
