Aliens of the Deep

One of the best things about this movie - specifically with regard to bringing kids to see it - is this: we see attractive, personable scientists who are excited - genuinely _excited_ - to be doing science.

And, of course, the eye candy of the science they're doing - submersibles, robot cameras, and so on. I'm convinced there'll be a few marine biologists twenty years from now who'll remember this movie as the first step on their road to discovery.

I'm raising a lively and inquisitive seven-year-old son, and one of my personal challenges is inoculating him against the pervasive anti-intellectualism of this culture. This movie makes being a marine biologist look cool and fun, and for that I'm profoundly grateful.

The ending _is_ a bit cheesy, but hey - most people like cheese.

When it comes to action movies, James Cameron is one of my favorite directors. In particular, "The Abyss" and "Terminator 2" are two of my all-time favorite movies. Like others, I'm disappointed to see that since "Titanic" Cameron is only making documentaries and I'm looking forward to see his "Battle Angel" (currently scheduled for a 2007 release), which will be his first feature in 10(!) years.

I didn't really like "Expedition: Bismarck" and "Ghosts of the Abyss", so my expectations from "Aliens of the Deep" weren't that high. Still, I got disappointed. I watched the 95-min DVD version and felt like I was watching a "behind the scenes" featurette of the real movie.

The movie promises to show us "aliens" from the bottom of the sea. It surprised me that during the entire duration, you don't get to see more than 10 minutes of that - most of them are the same creatures. TV shows like the excellent "The Blue Planet (2001)" by the BBC already gave us all these creatures (and many others not shown here) in a MUCH clearer view and better photography.

Instead, this movie focuses on showing all the people and equipment involved in making the dives. It was interesting in the first 10 minutes and it would have been alright if I wanted to know more about the making of the movie. But it's not interesting to see Cameron and crew for 95 minutes discussing how things should be made.

Except for the few short computer animations in the movie, I got a feeling that I was watching an unedited material. Cameron puts himself and lots of people with Ph.D. in front of the camera, but he is more interested in showing us them playing, making faces, modeling to the cameras and having really shallow discussions instead of giving some in-depth analysis of the subject.

Most of the underwater dialog consists of "Wow" and "That is amazing". The narration is horrible right from the beginning and the lowest point - for me - was during the explanation how these creatures were first discovered, which actually used the phrase: "These scientists went like 'Wow!'".

Most of the underwater material shows the submarines and the people instead of the creatures. Is it because they didn't find what they wanted and didn't have enough material to shows us? When you finally get to see some creatures, you have absolutely no explanations about them. So many educated scientists around and you don't even get to know the names of the creatures! You just watch it like you would if you dived yourself. Cameron himself sums it pretty well in one scene, when a beautiful jelly-like creature passes and he says "I have no idea what that is". I don't blame you - you're not a scientist, but what are all the people around for?

Summing it all up - this movie was a big disappointment and boring enough for me to fast-forward parts of it. If you want to see the creatures promised here, see another documentary; if you want to see a good Cameron project - go and watch any of his brilliant action movies. But save yourself from watching this.

"Yeah, hi, this is Jim... Yeah, Cameron... The genius who paired up Winslet and Di Caprio for that awful TITANIC movie... No, Mr.Markowitz, I don't have time to explain why I cast a skinny effeminate nerd, that's not why I called you, I'm a busy man... Listen, I need some scientists for an underwater documentary... A-ha... Charles, John, Mike... Well, no, actually I was thinking more of women, you see. I want this to be a politically correct film, so get me some female marine biologists. That way I have a better shot at getting a prestigious award. Have you got any?... You do? Great. A black- I mean, an African-American girl with Bob Marley hair? Excellent! What's more hip than that!? I'll get her to narrate a bulk of the movie... No, no, nevermind her credentials, I don't need them... She's just a student? Who cares... just send her and the other gals over."

In making this solid documentary, James Cameron behaved more like an actor than a director, i.e. someone who is always behind the camera. The major flaw of AOTD is that we see far too many shots of Jim and his dull female science team, and too little of the fascinating deep-ocean creatures which Cameron promised. Who cares to listen to the crews go "wow!" and "unbelievable!" every five minutes? The viewer is supposed to say it or think it, not these dull scientific clowns. The narration sounds flat, usually coming in form of barely audible, weak female voices. One of these narrators is a scientist who actually left her 5-month old infant to be on this expedition. Are we supposed to be impressed by her career ambitions? How very feminist. But I suppose Cameron was so adamant about having nearly all the scientists be women that he didn't even care about separating a mother from her infant.

I thought that the focus occasionally shifting on space exploration was a good idea, but there was too little of real scientific info of that nature. Too much screen time goes to waste on showing us the logistical difficulties of sending these subs down - as if anyone apart from engineers cares. Show me a fish with teeth like Edward Fox! That's what it's all about...

If you want a truly awe-inspiring documentary on deep-sea critters, check out "The Blue Planet": one of the six episodes delivers what Cameron here only partly manages to do.

Perhaps Cameron wants to be the next Jacque Cousteau, who was a self-centered egomaniac who pretended to only care about the preservation of nature when in fact it was exhibitionistic self-promotion that was always in the forefront. Damn, I'm tired of all these hyped-up idealists/humanists getting rich at the expense of our collective naivety.

Unfortunately most of the film gets terribly lost in boring exposition about the technology and erroneous dialogue. The narrator's lack of real scientific knowledge is painfully obvious as she struggles to read her script (with the occasional exclamations of "wow" or "that's amazing.) The various scientists' excruciating descriptions of technology sadly detract from the real stars of the show (the actual animal life), which the viewer will see only infrequently. A much better example of deep ocean cinematography can be found in the BBC series titled The Blue Planet narrated by David Attenborough and other related BBC titles. If you are watching with kids hoping to inspire their curiosity about science then PLEASE give this title a miss and move on to something that won't bore them to death.

When I saw James Cameron on The View when he was promoting this movie, I could not wait to see it. I love nature shows and the way he talked about it, the movie would be filled with many many kinds of undersea creatures never before seen. As the movie did not even play in my state, I drove over 3 states to see it. After seeing it, I can see why it was not more widely distributed.

The movie seemed to me to be more fitting to be played as something on career day for grade school. This movie would be good PR for trying to interest children in becoming marine biologists. It was not, as Cameron said, filled with unusual sea creatures. As a matter of fact, in the clip that he showed on The View, he showed all the creatures that I'd never seen before so by the time I saw the film, there was nothing new to see. And not only that, the percent of the film where creatures were shown was not that great. I think they spent more time talking to the scientists and looking at the submarines than they were showing creatures. It should have been called "Submersibles of the Deep".

If you have an interest in deep sea submersibles and the actual scientists that operate these pieces of equipment or if you are a grade schooler with an interest in seeing yourself as a marine biologist when you grow up, this movie is for you. If, however, you fit neither category, save your money.

One thing I don't understand is why was it billed as an IMAX feature and then play in a multiplex on the tiny screen? The 3-D glasses made me dizzy and were not all that effective.

The best part of this movie occurred when the film broke early on and we got our money back and were invited to see it again for free. At least I did not have to pay to see it.