Wild Ocean

I've seen a lot of IMAX movies and never really felt compelled to write a review before but I just saw Wild Ocean last weekend which gave me whole new faith in IMAX! So many IMAX movies are based on the same boring template even though the photography is always great. But Wild Ocean not only had some of the most stunning shots I've seen, it also features a timely message on the environment, great African culture, awesome music, and packs a genuine emotional punch (another thing rare in IMAX)! My kids wanted to go for the dolphins and sharks. Wild Ocean delivers on all fronts for everyone. Try to see this in IMAX because this film just raised the bar.

This documentary tells the stunning story of shoals of sardines swimming in the seas of Africa, moving beautifully as they are chased by dolphins and birds.

"Wild Ocean" has visually stunning footage of large shoals of sardines swimming in wild oceans, trying to avoid the dolphins and birds that prey on them. They move gracefully in formation, and yet when predator comes they sharply turn in packs while still staying in formation. How the fish manage to communicate with each other about which way to swim to is quite amazing, but unfortunately the scientific knowledge is not covered by this documentary. In fact, this documentary is all about visuals, and not much content is in it. It's not educational enough. I would have liked some education on scientific theories on sardines, as it would have been more intellectually challenging for viewers.

I imagine this lost a lot going from the visual power of 3D IMAX to my 60 inch 2D monitor, And it's 40 minute running time limited how deep it could go. (No pun intended). But it still was enjoyable – a well done wildlife documentary, focusing on the wild feeding frenzy that occurs most years along the eastern coast of South Africa, as giant clouds of hundreds of millions of sardines gather in search of food, bringing in turn every kind of imaginable predator in turn to eat them: sharks, dolphins, whales, sea birds, seals, and – of course – man.

Humans have fished this phenomena so heavily that the numbers of sardines has started to drop in recent years, and at the same time global ocean warming has started to change the sardines' geographical migration patterns.

All this is interesting and (or course) very well photographed. But probably because IMAX has to appeal to young kids as well as adults there's not the kind of depth of specific scientific information you might find in one of those BBC/David Attenborough documentaries covering the same subject.

Worth seeing, but probably far more so in it's natural habitat of a 60 foot IMAX screen.

Probably the most disappointing of the nature movies available on Netflix. The ocean is deep but this movie isn't, almost immediately you realize that this more polemic than documentary and there is nothing to be learned except that the ocean is full of tasty sardines and humanity is destroying everything.

The underwater footage was over edited and repetitive, the narration was condescending and predictable. Just a few minutes of eye candy played over and over.

Got a big screen TV? Then fast forward to the visually interesting parts and turn the volume down. You will be done in a few minutes.

Go see any of the David Attenborough nature documentaries if you want to actually learn about nature. Any old school Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom episode out classes this "documentary"

If you are a sardine, this must be a pretty interesting movie. No so for a jaded human such as myself. The film has some well shot scenes of the battle between sardines and its predators, comparable to some really battle scenes in intensity. But when you think about it, it's just some birds and dolphins attacking and eating sardines. Do you care?

The scenes by themselves would get a 8/10 for visuals and 2/10 for meaning (because it's sardines). The accompanying episodes of some black fisherman doing random stuff, apparently fishing for the sardines too are pointless and boring. The narration about cold and warm current is totally boring. The argument that we must protect the oceans and probably fish less is common sense, but it isn't presented here with any particular persuasiveness.

"This is the wild ocean, this is where Africa meets the sea." sounds great for the tag-line, but in reality there is nothing particularly wild or interesting about the coast (coast is where land meets the sea).

So I suggest skipping this.