The short opens with beautiful, life-like animation of flowers blooming, birds flying, and butterflies floating around. The title appears, “Our Wonderful Nature.” The narrator begins to tell us about today’s subject: the water shrew. Playing out like any regular nature program, “Nature” uses extremely detailed animation in place of filmed footage. It should be noted that at some points, one would be hard-pressed to identify the real from the fake, that’s how good this animation is. The nature doc moves along steadily, that is, until the twist. This documentary turns out to be a mockumentary about the love lives of these furry little rodents.
The majority of the film, which runs at a very tight five minutes, is a fight scene between two water shrews over a third, female water shrew. The fighting is hilarious although the style is a bit cliché. The camera spins around the creatures as they kick at each other in slow-motion. It’s like National Geographic meets “The Matrix.” So, while it’s funny, the movie loses points because of its lack of originality.
