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This has got to be the most blatant of the Disney documentaries posing as wannabe fictional films! Heck, they even label it as a “True-Life Fantasy” akin to their documentaries being labeled as “True-Life Adventures”! But don’t be fooled, while based on a book by Felix Salten (Bambi), this is essentially a documentary! Without further ado, here is my review of Disney’s Perri.
And remember, SPOILERS AHEAD!
Narrated by Winston Hibler, the film takes us into a forest known as Wildwood Heart. Therein live a number of wild animals including martens, foxes, owls, skunks, raccoons, beavers, and squirrels. One baby squirrel, in particular, is named Perri. Her mother is shown going out to get food for her and her siblings, but is attacked by a marten along the way.
Fortunately, the mother squirrel escapes the marten’s grasp as the marten finds another prey to serve as dinner for her young ones. As the season passes and Perri gets older, she soon leaves the nest in search of food for herself. While exploring the forest, she comes upon many of the forest animals including “Bambi”.
However when she returns to her nest, she finds that it’s been attacked (presumably by a bird of prey) and her mother and siblings are nowhere to be seen.
She herself escapes the clutches of a few predators and eventually meets a boy squirrel, Porro. Much of the rest of the film involves Perri dealing with multiple predators as she grows older including wildcats as well as her relationship with Porro. By the end of the movie, she and Porro have officially become mates!
“No, you take out the trash!”
And that was Perri! As you can see, I didn’t really have much to say about this film! It’s an animal-themed nature documentary, at best, and you know how bored I get with those type of films!
I will say though that there are surprisingly some good songs in this film! It feels so weird to hear songs in a Disney documentary, like these must be the most obscure Disney songs in the world! The cinematography in this film was good as well and I thought the animals behaved pretty convincingly; I’m not sure how trained or not they were. But in the end, this movie just ain’t my thing.
So, my final score for this film is 15/35 = 42.86% (F) !
My Live Action Disney Project 
I told you there was a story that kept it from being a straight documentary. I did not say it was a good story lol. I don’t mind the documentaries but when they try to add a story it just doesn’t work. And yet they keep on trying for twenty years.
Will they ever learn?
God I hope so, because I’m in the mid70s and it’s still happening
Dang, even in a semi-documentary, the parents have to die lol. I had it as background while working on other things. Like all the nature documentaries, it perfectly served its’ purpose as just that.
I sadly didn’t keep it on in background, lol!