Deep Blue Movie Review

The ocean. It's big. It's real big. It's full of stuff. We haven't even seen most of this stuff... except in the zillions of films and TV shows that tell us about the stuff in the oceans. Sharks 3D. Aliens of the Deep. March of the Penguins. Finding Nemo.

OK, that last little bit is a joke. But seriously, we've been in an ocean-documentary glut of late, and Deep Blue just doesn't have much in it that we haven't seen a few times before. The draw here is the cinematography, which is breathtaking and right up in there with the animals. Schools of fish. Dolphins doing tricks (apparently untrained, even). Giant whales, right down to glow-in-the-dark jellyfish type things in the Marianas Trench. Pierce Brosnan narrates in a solemn monotone.

Thank God that directors Andy Byatt and Alastair Fothergill don't have any "Cameron's kids" to deal with, which sank Aliens into being a film suitable only for elementary school kids. Deep Blue's crime is rather being overly preachy about environmental dangers and the usual "oh man we don't understand all this stuff in the ocean but we sure are destroying it quick" talk. Not that I don't believe in that stuff, it's just that it's so embarassingly in-your-face that it kind of wrecks the enjoyment of the picture.

If you want to kick back with your monster TV and surround sound system and envelop yourself in the open water of the ocean, Deep Blue is an amazing way to get up close and personal with nature. Now if there was only a way to shut off the narration....

The DVD includes a making of featurette.