Underwater but overlong
- Source: Global Times
- [08:39 August 05 2010]
- Comments
A scene from Ocean World 3D. Photos: Courtesy of 3D Entertainment
By Nick Muzyczka
Ocean World 3D, which the makers claim is the first feature-length nature documentary to be both filmed and released in digital 3-D, follows the migration of a pregnant sea turtle through various oceanic locations as she moves toward her breeding ground.
Directed and produced by veteran filmmakers, brothers Jean-Jacques and Francois Mantello (Sharks 3D, Ocean Wonderland 3D, Dolphins and Whales 3D: Tribes of the Ocean), this movie manages to record a number of impressive scenes but at 85 minutes feels far too long.
The biggest complaint from moviegoers will be the decision to aim the film at such a young target audience. While some of the captured shots are impressive and involving, the monotonous delivery of the narrator, the moments of tremendous banality and the highly anthropomorphized descriptions of our turtle's daily activities, become quickly irritating for anyone over the age of 10.
The soundtrack to Ocean World 3D oscillates between just-about-acceptable and you-must-be joking, and includes one "funk" song that could have been lifted from a 1980s computer game, played over the top of some sea lions frolicking and feeding. The laziness of the music choices contributes to the overriding unfinished feel to the movie.
A handful of scenes do work to ward off sleep. There is some excellent footage of a rarely viewed event in which dolphins encircle a shoal of fish, driving them upwards, while seabirds plunge into the water and attack from above. The tightly packed shoal is then devoured almost in its entirety by a marauding fin whale.
The 3-D filming really comes into its own in scenes where numbers of creatures are interacting. In one of the parts of the movie where we are actually given a location, Thousand Shark Island, the footage of the congregating hammerhead sharks is impressive and menacing. Another fine moment arrives when the very tip of the fin of a giant whale shark appears to flick past the eyes of the audience.
There are pleasant, but entirely saccharine scenes with dolphins, a nice wander through a kelp forest and some interesting nighttime shots of some small fish trying to snatch an evening meal. The graceful, delicate movements of the manta rays probably constitute Ocean World 3D's most beautiful scene.
Such moments of visual splendor can be safely attributed to the skill of its French directors, who have been shooting stereoscopically and underwater since 1992.
Francois and Jean-Jacques Mantello began their 18-year ocean journey with Miracle Mermaid, winning the 1992 Palme d'Or du Public (Gold Award) at the 25th World Fes-tival of Underwater Pictures in Antibes, France.
The lack of detail in the movie's narration is unwelcome, not only because it adopts that patronizing attitude toward children of "they are young so we will treat them as if they are incredibly stupid," but also because it results in long, awkward, silent passages where very little seems to be happening.
However beautiful a sea turtle looks rendered in 3-D, there comes a point when watching it swim aimlessly in deep water becomes wearing.
"Sometime the sharks stay in their breeding grounds for a month without eating. Because they don't eat, moss grows on their teeth," we are told, but no explanation of the interesting question "why don't they eat?" is forthcoming.
It is very difficult to think of Ocean World 3D as anything other than a film for very young children.
Even 3-D addicts and those with a genuine interest in life in the ocean are likely to be turned off by the movie's numerous flaws.
As a spectacle for those under 10 it works and the film may well be a useful learning tool for ESL students in China, but in general terms it is absolutely not worth the exorbitant price of 3-D movie tickets.
