Journey Into Amazing Caves

I first saw this IMAX film in Sydney on my trip down under. Not only was it amazing to see some of the most beautiful footage on a screen that is over 8 stories high, but the story was also very interesting to me. It had some incredible climbing scenes...112F in the Grand Canyon, 500' down into ice caves in Greenland, Bats in Georgia, and underwater cave diving in the Yucatan. It not only deals with the sport of caving, but one of the ladies in the film is a micro-biologists who is collecting rare extremophiles, microorganisms that live in extremely harsh environments, for scientific research. It was narrated by Liam Neeson with music by The Moody Blues. I bought it on DVD, knowing it would lose a lot visually going from the IMAX screen to my TV. I'm glad I did, because it has a "making of" documentary that was just as interesting as the IMAX movie, showing both the technical aspects of what went into the shoot as well as the personal side of those involved.

Four researchers are in Arizona looking into the extreme environment of caves to search for new organisms and new medicines. Nancy Holler Aulenbach is a cave climber specialist. Hazel Barton is collecting biological specimens. She is also on leave as a teaching assistant in a second grade class. She does presentations to the class over the computer. The group travels around the globe.

It's one of those science center movies. It's a second tier production. One of the ladies kept mentioning her husband. She needs to stop that. I like the computer presentations to the kids. The old computers are fun. She should do the ice sliding for the kids to see. That's what they want. They want to see her climbing and crawling inside the caves. All in all, this is fine but nothing special.

I'm a big fan of IMAX, and this is the best I've seen. Stunning photography, the best shots, the movie is better than "Everest." The "making of" addition is also very compelling, and gives you a good understanding of how dedicated the people who made this movie are.

The scenery is breathtaking, the explorer/scientists brave and adventurous. What "Journey Into Amazing Caves" does is take viewers on an excursion to several caves -- virtually impossible to reach, in some cases never before seen by the human eye caves, spectacularly remote caverns tucked away in some of the Earth's most extreme landscapes. And they do it not so much for the joy of the journey as for, potentially, the benefit of mankind.

The theory behind these grand, yes life-threatening expeditions is that if organisms that can live in the earth's least friendly enviornments, if they can thrive despite extreme heat or cold or other hideously harsh conditions, they might well provide clues to cures for human disease.

The name for these extraordinarily hearty organisms is "extremeophiles," and the "stars" of "Journey Into Amazing Caves" set about reaching and collecting samples of these admirable little forms of life, from caves cut into the walls of the desert mountains of Arizona, and the ice caps of Greenland, and the deep seas and lagoons of the Yucatan Penninsula of Mexico.

At minimum, "Amazing Caves" is a collection of glorious moving-picture postcards, the likes of which you surely have never seen. At best, it is an inspirational look at some amazing feats that humans accomplish in order to fulfill, well, curiosity.

As the credits rolled today when I saw this film, the audience cheered. Take yourself on an expedition this summer, see planet Earth as you've not seen it before, give yourself something to cheer, go see this movie.

My daughter Maria and I were thrilled with so many scenes, especially:

the kayaks plummeting down waterfalls while searching for new caves to explore;

the scary heights of caves in the middle of cliffs only reachable by rappelling and/or crossing rivers by rope many, many feet high up;

descending into ice caverns where you hear the icicles falling and the glacier groaning;

and finally, the holding of our breath as they swam under water through body width openings in search of microorganisms, which was their main goal.

The plane/helicopter rides were breathtaking also - seemingly going to crash you right into the side of a mountain.

Their adventures in Iceland and North America, for the main sake of finding medical cures for the future, will never be forgotten.

(And, if my daughter and wife aren't reading this, the ladies were sure cute, besides being brave, dedicated, athletic and intelligent.)