Deep Blue

We watched this film in school the other day. I thought that it would have just been some half-hour National Geographic special on the ocean, but it was actually a real movie. They showed us creatures at the bottom of the ocean, and more. The cinematography was excellent, and the music score was also well-done. It always fit with what was going on. It wasn't just some footage from Jaws 4 and an Australian-voiced cartoon character making shark jokes. It was a very well done film, and it was narrated by Pierce Brosnan of James Bond fame. I suggest renting it or something. Hope this review was helpful and all. I give Deep Blue an 8/10.

The beginning of this documentary is devoid of credits. We see dolphins swimming and leaping in the open water and sea birds diving directly into the ocean to snatch a fish. The narrator (Pierce Brosnan) says, "This is a world of constant jeopardy, an endless cycle of birth, death, and renewal." Powerful waves crash into the rocky coast, where the sea lions return to give birth, but unwary seals become prey to predators (the black and white colored killer whales) in the shallows at high tide. Then again, the whales themselves risk being stranded there.

More marine life is seen before the view shifts to the coral reefs, "a narrow band of sun-fed life only found in the shallows of the tropical seas." The skeletons of coral polyps – the smallest and most fragile of organisms – form the reef. The darkness is feeding time for some; the night-feeders with built-in sensors have no need of light. Fascinating and colorful sea creatures abound further below the ocean surface, but unfortunately most are not identified. There are poisonous jellyfish and manta rays. Just before the halfway mark of the film the scene moves to the Arctic (polar bears) and also Antarctic (penguins). In the Antarctic the temperature is seventy degrees below zero (-70°F) and the winds exceed one hundred miles per hour. The penguins gather speed in the cold waters before jumping out and landing on sheet ice. Meanwhile in the far north the polar bears search for nesting seals hidden in ice caves situated just below the surface. Thirty-ton gray whales travel six thousand miles to feed in the polar seas. After six hours of jostling, killer whales separate one unfortunate gray calf from its mother and move in when it is thoroughly exhausted.

From the surface of the ocean we next enter a subterranean world, the deepest underwater area on the planet and where surface light does not penetrate. Seven miles deep (the Marianas Trench), it is a mystery world of perpetual night. It is a sparsely explored netherworld of odd life forms (again unidentified). The only light emanates from the undersea creatures themselves. Light is used as a lure to attract prey or as a decoy to confuse them. Poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas and boiling water spew forth in some areas. Yet, even near those settings some life forms exist. At film's end we hear that there are only a few thousand blue whales left on earth. The blue whales are earth's largest creatures by far.

The narration is limited and the orchestral music appropriate. If you like nature documentaries, you will enjoy this one, although there are several lulls.

Reading some of the previous comments I feel that I must have been watching a different Deep Blue. Although i found some of the visuals stunning i felt that much of it was appalling. Some of the 'out of water'shots looked horrible, reminded me of watching games on a Commodore 64!!! As some others have said, much of this footage has been seen before, so i really didn't see the point of this movie. The musical score was good and it did match the footage well. If sea life is your thing, I would recommend the Blue Planet. Note of interest: did anybody else actually find some of the footage very poor. I watched on a widescreen LCD (brand new), so perhaps the poor quality arose because of the screen size.

I studied marine biology for a couple years in college, and this movie has some of the most amazing underwater footage I've ever seen. It's a fascinating journey into the ocean, particularly the parts that most of us will never see, like the arctic regions and the deepest reaches of the deep ocean. Some of the shots themselves are incredible just in the way the camera crew were able to immerse themselves in the biological communities that they were filming, especially the feeding scenes. Anyone with even a passing interest in the ocean and the mysteries of life on this planet should definitely not miss this. This movie is an explanation for why so many people believe that our planet should be called Oceanus rather than Earth.

Liked "Winged Migration" and "Microcosmos," "Deep Blue" is a big-screen nature documentary patiently filmed over a period of years. As "Winged Migration" concentrated on the creatures of the air, so "Deep Blue" focuses on creatures of the sea. Reminding us how little we have explored the liquid space of our own oceans, the images here can be beautiful and graceful (dolphins playing in the surf), humorous (a mass of crabs laying eggs on the sand) as well as grim and deadly (killer whales attacking and eating seal pups). The moments of beauty are poignant indeed, and "Deep Blue" has it's share of "wow" moments. It divides itself into various themes; the shallows, the shoreline, the open seas, the polar seas, and the deep. The latter is shot near the deepest places on earth, and several creatures never before photographed are displayed in all their bioluminescent glory. The penguins shooting out of the ocean like biological missiles is quite amazing, and the feeding frenzy of the sharks is terrifying. Michael Gambon's narration is rarely intrusive, but it isn't as informative as I would have liked; they could have used some graphics to at least give you an idea of what creatures you were seeing, or where the shots were located. Still, this is a beautiful film, much of which was filmed for the "Blue Planet" BBC series. It looks frightfully gorgeous on the big screen, although parents should be warned that the seal pup death scenes can be terrifying to younger or more sensitive viewers.