Others say...

"Bringing our evolutionary past to life."
I've been learning a lot about evolution lately, and this DVD was very informative in helping me understand our origins better. It's cool that in the series we not only hear about the hominids that came before us, but see their lives being reenacted. That made it not only educational, but also interesting and easy to watch. I recommend this DVD to anyone interested in evolution, and especially in human origins.

"A comparative review"
Before I begin this review, I must admit that I am obsessed with human evolution. However, my education on the subject is limited to the few documentary films and educational programs on the subject as well as a few short books. So my review is probably best read as a review of a leisure evolution lover.

That being said I found the documentary very fascinating and enjoyable. However, of all of the documentaries that I have seen on the subject, Walking with Cavemen would find itself a few spots below the top spot.

For anyone interested in the subject, I recommend "The making of Mankind" 7 volume documentary hosted by Richard Leaky. This documentary begins with our earliest 4 legged ancestors and works slowly and carefully through each adaptation along the way. Each volume is approx. 45 minutes and explores not only the major physical changes of each species, but also the important consequences of every stage. The series is much more in depth and pays careful attention to several aspects of human evolution.

The first 5 volumes work cronologically from australopithecus to homo sapien sapien. The 6th volume discusses the begginning of civilization and farming. Each volume is fascinating and could be watched individual of the others.

In the final volume, Leaky explores the idea that Humans are inherently violent and destined to destroy themselves. Leaky explores where this idea comes from and proposes a beautiful and humble counter argument that suggests that humans only thrived on earth because of their recognition of others.

Walking with cavemen is fun and interesting, and has the benefit of being much more recent and therefore probably more accurate, but Making of mankind is, in my feeble opinion, a much greater documentary. It could probably be found in most libraries.

"Terrific! (Don't let the academics spoil this one for you!)"
In anthropology and archeology, "current" and "factual" are unfortunately rather nebulous terms.

The fact of the matter is that much of what is taught in universities -- as well as what is presented here -- is highly speculative.

Students, of course, are taught to parrot theories being propounded in the latest academic publications (written chiefly by professors seeking tenure, who must create new theorems to survive).

Naturally, these students cluck and shake their heads when they see any deviation to what they've been sold by their faculty staff. (The next year will bring a new batch of speculation taught as fact.)

The upshot for you, dear viewer? You will find this film VERY fun, VERY well animated, and, yes, generally informative enough to entertain and educate. The particularities of theory will continue to change as time goes on. That is unavoidable.

This is a triumph of creative production, and I give it a very hearty 5 stars.

And anyone who feels this is simply "freaking hilarious!" would probably do better cast *in* the movie, rather than simply viewing it.

"Somewhat disappointing"
The BBC's "Walking With..." series has been very high quality since its inception. Great visual effects combined with clarity of exposition and just enough "story-telling" to enable most viewers to remain captivated while absorbing decent chunks of information. This latest addition to the series maintains the general format of its forebears but, perhaps inevitably, is the least successful.

It's difficult for humans to have any kind of realistic vision of themselves, so any series that tries to show how we evolved over the millenia (and some of the dead-ends along the way) is going to have problems. In this case there are simply too many gaps and too many leaps across those gaps with only the merest fig leaf of speculation to cover the chasm. And there are some fairly odd assertions about what aspects of adaptation had which effects.

Perhaps the most striking gap is that these episodes miss out on some of the most interesting conclusions we've been able to draw as a result of the last 6 years of genetic analysis. So this series has an "old" feel even though it is recently made. It also misses a lot of hard knowledge we've had for a long time, perhaps because it was too uncomfortable to include. For example, the ape-men are shown being monogamous, whereas we know that in all societies at all times known to us, dominant human males have tried to form and keep harems, either explicity or illicitly. Likewise we know a great deal about the necessity of violence in societies where wealth cannot easily be abstracted, and is thus easily stolen. Aggression is the only defence - and of course greater aggression is the main tactic for theft. Neither of these facts appears anywhere in the series, no doubt because we don't like seeing the uncomfortable truth about these aspects of our species.

Other than that, the makeup and imitation of pre-human gaits etc. is superb and one or two points are interestingly non-obvious: for example, that the development of enlarged and highly visible whites in our eyes is most probably to enhance signalling, so we can detect subtle emotional states in others.

All in all, worth buying but not watching more than once.

"Freaking hilarious"
Not to offend all of the people who think that this movie is really educational, but I could not help from cracking up at how the cavemen behave and interact throughout the entire thing. How can you take it seriously, just watch them! One of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time...