Microcosmos (1996)
Bac Films

Description

Microcosmos captures the fun and adventure of a spectacular hidden universe revealed in a breathtaking, close-up view unlike anything you've ever seen! Your family will marvel at a pair of stag beetles dueling like titans. The kids will stare bug-eyed as a magnificent army of worker ants race to stock their larder ... while trying to avoid becoming a feisty pheasant's dinner. And you'll have a front-row seat to witness an amazing transformation from caterpillar to butterfly, the remarkable birth of a mosquito, and several other minute miracles of life.

Tags

Insects

Collected reviews and ratings

10 Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

"Microcosmos" is an amazing film that allows us to peer deeply into the insect world and marvel at creatures we casually condemn to squishing.
Read full review (DVD)

10 Reel | Tim Knight

Aside from some judiciously chosen music and the spare narration, nature provides the soundtrack to Microcosmos. The uncanny result is a film of startling immediacy, free of the often stultifying voice-over that's bogged down many a similar documentary.
Read full review (DVD)

10 TV Guide

... the spectacle is absolutely enthralling, and even a bit frightening. Buzzing bees recall helicopters, sparkling spider webs look like steel cables and a pair of battling beetles resemble warring tanks. Take the kids, but tell them those amorous snails are playing patty-cake.
Read full review (DVD)

9.0 DVD Talk | Jeff Paramchuk

With each shot amazingly composed and fantastically edited, you'll find yourself sitting back with a child-like grin during this entire feature. There are some sequences that will make you wonder out loud how they managed to turn something that we feel is such a nuisance, like the birth of a mosquito from it's underwater cocoon, into a work of beauty.
Read full review (DVD)

9.0 Variety | Brendan Kelly

With a running time just under standard feature length, there isn't a dull moment here, and this all-natural ensemble piece delivers more dramatic punch than many a human pic.
Read full review (DVD)

9.0 Amazon user reviews

After watching this film, I want to become an amateur entomologist. It really is that revelatory and inspiring.
Read full review (DVD)

8.0 filmcritic.com | Jake Euker

... no one could have convinced me that I would leave a documentary about the day-to-day lives of insects in anything but a state of sustained panic. And yet Microcosmos remains among my very favorite nature documentaries or, for that matter, documentaries of any kind.
Read full review (DVD)

8.0 Urban Cinefile | Andrew L. Urban

Filled with life and death, war and peace, sex and - to my mind - even a kind of love (see the Burgundy snails), Microcosmos is a moving, funny, dramatic and mind expanding experience.
Read full review (DVD)