In theaters

WINGED MIGRATION, directed by Jacques Perrin, written by Stephane Durand and Perrin, 89 minutes, rated G. Now playing, Movie City 8, Bangor.

One of summer’s best movies, one that doesn’t have a marketing budget, will likely go unseen in the absence of a manufactured hype.

Too bad, because Jacques Perrin’s “Winged Migration” – a documentary, of sorts, about the migration of nearly two dozen species of birds – is fantastic, an outstanding, Academy Award-nominated effort from the director of 1996’s “Microcosmos” that offers something for all audiences, not just those who love birds.

Shot over the course of four years on all seven continents by a crew of 450, including 14 cinematographers and 17 pilots flying anything from hot-air balloons to custom-designed airplanes, the movie surpasses, on almost every level, the glut of summer blockbusters now crowding theaters.

Its plot is life and survival on a worldwide scale, which is nothing new for the movies. Still, this is no cartoon. It’s the real thing, filled with scenes of such breathtaking awe and stomach-turning chills, it easily could go head-to-head with the biggest of this season’s Pentium-charged lot.

To be sure, nothing in “Hulk,” “2 Fast, 2 Furious” or “Pirates of the Caribbean,” for instance, comes close to matching the showy hustle and plumage of the sage grouse, the Mae West of the bird world that shakes its breast with such reckless abandon, it would probably get harassed and picketed if it were to land in South Brewer. Likewise, you’d be hard- pressed to find in the new horror film “28 Days Later” a scene more haunting than “Migration’s” scores of rock crabs overcoming a bird with a broken wing and then methodically plucking it bare.

It’s as if Hitchcock, standing just offscreen, were encouraging them.

For the most part, it’s capturing beauty – not death-that “Migration” has on its mind. With only the briefest of narration given by Perrin, the film provides the ultimate bird’s-eye view, soaring alongside these birds, which were trained from birth to accept Perrin and his crew – as they sweep the globe in search of food.

Aligned in symmetry, their necks extended like exclamation points, they are driven to destinations that can span an astonishing 12,500 miles, as is the case with the arctic tern, which somehow travels twice a year from the Arctic to Antarctica.

It’s that often perilous journey, boosted by the world as its backdrop and hindered at seemingly every turn by man and his quest to hunt or destroy the environment, that makes “Winged Migration” one of this season’s must-see films.

Grade: A

On video and DVD

NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, written and directed by Douglas McGrath, 130 minutes, rated PG.

In the early 1980s, just when it was becoming fashionable to believe that unbridled excess was once again good for the soul, the Royal Shakespeare Company outdid itself by running a 91/2-hour stage version of Charles Dickens’ 1839 novel, “Nicholas Nickleby.”

Think about that for a moment – 91/2 hours of poverty-stricken Brits scratching and clawing for survival in a sandbox of squalor and despair. You would have left the show either suicidal or feeling great about your own situation.

Now, on video and DVD, is a new screen version of “Nickleby” that comes in at a far more reasonable 130 minutes.

As directed by Douglas McGrath (“Emma”) from his own script, the film condenses Dickens’ tale of woe and sunshine without losing its spirit, dark humor, vivid characters and themes of good triumphing over evil.

For those unfamiliar with the story, “Nicholas Nickleby,” in its most streamlined form, follows the highs and lows (mostly the lows) of 19-year-old Nicholas Nickleby (Charlie Hunan), a young man who, along with his mother and sister, must scramble to recover from the sudden death of the family patriarch.

Leaving Devonshire, the Nicklebys burst upon the London scene like three canaries ready for the coal mine.

In short order, they are sucker-punched by the Industrial Revolution and then by their dear Uncle Ralph (Christopher Plummer), a vicious beast whose duplicitous offers of help quickly reveal that his enormous wealth has indeed poisoned him beyond repair.

Many adventures ensue-too many, in fact, to list here – but for the most part, they’re fun when they’re meant to be fun, moving when they’re meant to be moving. In other words, the film successfully achieves its purpose: It captures the essence of Dickens without bastardizing his work.

Grade: B+

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, Thursdays on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6, and are archived on RottenTomatoes.com. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.