DVD Reviews

IMAX: Under the Sea - Blu-ray Review

By Dana Rae Apr 21, 2010, 15:17 GMT

Imagine a world of incredible color and beauty. Of crabs wearing jellyfish for hats. Of fish disguised as frogs, stones and shag carpets. Of a kaleidoscope of life dancing and weaving, floating and darting in an underwater wonderland. Now, go explore it! Howard Hall and his filmmaking team, who brought you Deep Sea and Into the Deep, take you into tropical waters alive with adventure: the Great Barrier Reef and ...more

Up close and personal, a special team of underwater divers and film crew go to remote areas of the world to bring underwater life to us. Narrated by Jim Carrey, this humorous and touching documentary is much more than a documentary.

Filmed in sometimes perilous venues and circumstances, Under the Sea brings striking clarity to various creatures and their watery habit. The goal, according to behind-the-scenes interviews, was to bring what the divers saw onto the screen. They succeed! You will watch open-mouthed as my son and I did, and if you love ocean life anyway (as we do), you will be almost overwhelmed. It is as if you are there. 

One such scene with a great white brings you inches from it. The behind-the-scenes footage lets you in on a small secret - the divers filming had to be out of the steel cage that protected them to get the footage, with only a long stick to poke at the sharks if they got to close.

They were four feet from one of the ocean’s most feared predators as it swam by them. One person being interviewed talks about how, in high def technology, that you can see the serrated teeth. And you can! 

The running time of the film is about forty minutes, but the behind-the-scenes footage gives you insight into the filmmaker’s trials and successes. For instance, the underwater cameras used weighted 1300 lbs. and moving them from location to location proved an incredible feat when one considers the remote localities involved: Papua New Guinea New Britain, Papua New Guinea Milne Bay, South Australia, The Great Barrier Reef, and Indonesia. 

Once in the water, the cameras were easily guided by two divers, but because of the special type of technology, each camera had only 3 minutes of film. The divers would stay in the water while others hoisted the cameras up to the boat and reloaded. This was a tenacious project to undergo, especially with choppy seas and gale-force winds that had to be endured in some locations. 

In one segment seen, the divers and crew spent 6 hours filming a stone fish (one of the most venomous fish) waiting for it to feed. They finally were rewarded with its lightening quick meal of a curious reef fish. 

In another segment, the crew and divers get rare footage of a green sea turtle making a meal of a jellyfish. Turtles are not susceptible to the stings of jelly fish and find them quite palatable, apparently. 

Seen on Blu-ray with the 1080p picture, and having been shot that way to enhance the viewer’s experience, is breath-taking. To the ocean enthusiast or the nature lover, this is a must have.  The variety of sea life from whales to sharks to the unusual such as cuttlefish and sea snakes takes you on a journey of a life-time. The Australian sea lion kissing the camera is priceless.

Also, the message is loud and clear: we must protect our oceans as coral reefs are dying, and with them, the animals that call the reefs home. Some shots of dead coral reefs really bring home this message with striking clarity. 

Highly recommended, Under the Sea will not disappoint. It will amaze and delight. I watched it three times with my six year old (who loves anything oceanic). I found it very informative, at times humorous (you wouldn’t expect that from such a documentary style, but Jim Carrey is narrating it), and the outgoing message is very worthwhile.

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