Oceans

source: Oceans

source: Oceans

Oceans, though a documentary, is also quite a typical French movie in that it is confounding, since the French seem to celebrate the abstract. My reaction at the end of a few French movies has been "WTF." I initially expected this to be an ecological "save our oceans" movies, but the first half of the movie played more like a "mysteries of the ocean" visual extravaganza in which they showed many creatures and sights I'd never seen before. Gorgeous. All of a sudden it switches to highlighting the cruelty of man, with many bloody scenes such as live sharks having their fins cut off and being tossed back into the ocean to starve to death. And then it concludes with the expected "save our oceans" spiel, which I have to say is a whole lot less interesting than the rest of the movie. And not very motivating either. At the end of An Inconvenient Truth, I felt like I had to go out to do something to help save the world (I didn't but still), whereas Oceans left me mostly apathetic. What this movie feels like is a string of visually spectacular clips of marine life, tied together as best they could by its directors into a barely-cohesive documentary. Its messages come across as incidental and unavoidable: "Well since we have these gory/sad clips anyway and since all documentaries about nature have to chastise humans." It's not a bad watch if you're into nature documentaries but you're ambivalent, you might as well stay home and watch The Discovery Channel.

This is the kind of documentary movie you want to watch it in the theater.. don't wait for DVD, watch it NOW while it's still in theater. Just relax, enjoy breathtaking view, free yourself from Hollywood special effects or thinking too much about why the plot is so stupid. I recommend front seat than back seat so you can feel 'immersed' into the ocean. I like this movie because 1)the camera work is amazing 2) it covers almost every part of the world's ocean; from Artic, Galapagos, to small but high diversity place in Indonesia sea. 3)It's not over-narrated, nor highly political ambitious. Even tough the narration is less informative and sounds a bit strange because it is translated from French, but I believe the stunning visual needs less speech. I saw few kids not really enjoying the movie and left before it's over, probably because it's too sleepy for them, but hey, your kids can experienced more than Hollywood bullshit for a while.

Disney's "Oceans" is quite simply one of the best nature documentaries ever made. I watch quite a few nature documentaries on TV and DVD but "Oceans" still had quite a few things I had never seen before. The photography is outstanding. The narration was by Pierce Brosnan was good but the dialog could have been more informative. The music was pleasant and rarely intrusive. Although I watch many nature documentaries at home, it was nice to see it on the big screen. It really puts you in the environment. And since I don't scuba dive or travel around the world, it is the closest I will ever be to actually seeing these amazing creatures. Do yourself a favor and see "Oceans" while it is still in the theaters.

This is the most spectacular nature documentary that I have ever seen. My wife and I walked out of the theatre so spellbound that we had difficulty expressing to each other our amazement at what we had just seen. It is an amazing, astounding, awesome film. I have seen a great number of documentaries on the oceans, including the excellent ones from the BBC. But none of them has made me so aware of the vastness, beauty, power, and variety of the seas. One reviewer wrote that there was much beauty but little information in the documentary. I could not disagree more. There was an immense quantity of information in that documentary. Not data, but contextual information so essential to the understanding of any topic. But this is not a morality play (unless you strain to interpret it that way). If you are a climate change denier (God forbid), or if the environment is not a concern of yours (God forbid again), don't be 'afraid' to see this film. There are ecological references but there is no browbeating. And don't miss it while it is still in the theatres. It is impossible for a DVD to do it justice. The oceans do not fit on a TV screen. It does not matter how high, or deep, your current appreciation of the wonders of Life on Earth is. For a few dollars and a couple of hours of your time, it will increase tenfold.

Pierce Brosnan's sickly sweet, schmaltzy narration is the nail in the coffin for this abysmal waste. The film has no coherence and seems to want to present itself as a fairytale like dance with humanity as the wicked witch, sea life the ingenue desperately trying to escape its clutches. It's such a waste that so much effort, talent and breathtaking imagery can just be flittered away in such a pointless dramatisation when the images speak for themselves. Not recommended for anyone, certainly not the children which are Disney's usual target, far superior alternatives already exist. Avoid or watch in French with no subtitles.

There is a sequence in Oceans that blows my mind. A stone crab emerges from the seabed and crawls along. Another follows. And then a few more follow. The camera then trails these creatures as they make their way to somewhere in the middle of nowhere. The stone crabs are joined by more of their own. Suddenly, in an establishing shot that continues to baffle me, the camera reveals what seems like hundreds of thousands of stone crabs in "a great big orgy". The sandy seabed that stretches for miles and miles could not have been more alive. That is only one of a number of spectacular scenes on show. Another highly memorable sequence shows deft skill in quick cutting as hundreds of predatory birds dive headfirst into the water at startling speeds as the camera captures their assault on small fishes through above water and underwater shots. The latter is quite incredible, and eerily reminiscent of bullets ripping through the water in the Normandy beach scene of Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (1998). Jacques Perrin, whose previous film credits famously include acting as the adult Toto in Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso (1988), director of the excellent Oscar-nominated documentary Winged Migration (2001), and producer of Z (1969) and The Chorus (2004), now has Oceans in his resume, a documentary that explores in amazing detail what happens under the sea, bright day or still night, stormy or fine weather. The result is like nature washing over you as you drown in its unrivalled beauty. There is no gasping for air but the taking in of the vitality of life. Oceans surprisingly works well as "a thriller". In certain sequences, Perrin opts for suspense, such as the one involving baby turtles as they evade hungry birds, making their way into the sea from the shore in their own version of Normandy. Many of them are eaten while the lucky ones try to survive in the big blue ocean. Even though collectively the turtles represent a faceless mass, we fear for each one of them because Perrin focuses on one or two of them at any one time, heightening the sense of vulnerability. It is not surprising, however, to see Oceans preaching the ecological message. "Save the planet! Save the animals!" become the general plea for viewers to do their part in protecting their only home in this vast universe. But the plea is not as strong and specifically targeted as what is felt in The Cove (2009), the Oscar-winning documentary that secretly chronicles the slaying of hundreds of dolphins by Japanese fishermen in a hidden lagoon, and has now been controversially and unfairly labeled as "anti-Japanese". Oceans is lightly-narrated. This is a good move as the stunning underwater cinematography is left to do all the talking, or in this context, to speak in silence to the viewer. Perrin films in cinema verite style; his camera is unbiased, objective, and unobtrusive. His use of original music by Bruno Coulais (The Chorus) is also spot on. Very often, the marrying of melody and motion (that of sea creatures) is a joy to experience, alternating between the subtle and the grandeur. It's weird to say this but Oceans may leave your forearms bruised. Now, you may wonder why. Well, every once in a while, you might just pinch yourself to see if those beautiful imageries are really real or created with a green screen. Of course, no CG effect could ever replicate nature's beauty. Oceans shows why and that's quite something to think about. SCORE: 8/10 (www.filmnomenon.blogspot.com) All rights reserved!

I like French-produced nature documentaries. I thoroughly enjoyed "Winged Migration", and I liked "March of the Penguins" even more. But I didn't much care for "Oceans". And in the wake of the recent disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, I was more depressed by all the pretty pictures than enthralled. The first thing you need to know about "Oceans" is that it's not for all ages. It is specifically geared towards grade-school and preschool children. If you've had a 7th grade biology class, you won't be learning anything new. And it has the annoying habit of the old Disney nature docs of assigning cute human traits to sea animals. Another annoying aspect was Pierce Brosnan's ethereal high-pitched, half-whispered narration. It made me wonder how anyone thought this guy was an action star. But I would recommend letting your kids see this one. If they're under 12, they might actually learn something. And to those not born yet, you can show it and say "This is what our oceans looked like before human greed and willful ignorance ruined it." But to present-day adults, this is an unintentionally depressing bore of a movie. 6 out of 10.

Very seldom am I moved enough to write a review. But I feel I needed to try and help folks save money. Firstly, I love the ocean. I grew up surfing, body surfing, diving etc. I spent my college years volunteering at the Durban Sea-Quarium. But this movie was terrible. They spend way too much time on close-ups when somethings need to be seen in whole. Especially on a movie screen. The closeup of the ribbon eel was so frustrating. And secondly, as other reviews have said there is NO information provided. Maybe that was the point, but simply showing pictures of sea life without explaining how we are impacting them or why and what they are doing is just that. A picture of an animal. There is no connection or deeper understanding. My wife asked our 8 and 6 year old what they learned when we left the movie, and the only thing they could come up with was that they don't want to be in the storm that big ship was in. (That was the most impressive part of the film, I must admit)