Wild Ocean (2008)

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

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.

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.

A claustrophobic view of one phenomena off the African coast: sardine shoals. Due to the turbid water and poor visibility, all camera work was close and near the frenzy. The music score was all synthesized monotony....four chords repeated forty minutes long. Staged native African people doing what is stereotypically expected of them. Heavily accented narrator reading a formulaic script....heard it all before. Blame the humans and brand them ultimate predators who have no rights among the wild oceans. IMAX was all wrong for this movie and caused headaches in everyone in my party. Two thumbs and two big toes down. A complete waste of time.

I don't normally go out of my way to write up reviews on this site - but wow, even my kids were bored! This movie could have easily been called "40 Minutes of Small Fish Getting Eaten Over and Over again!" Admittedly I did not look to hard at the show description - but with a name like "Wild Ocean" you expect to get some amazing underwater photography. You got none of that from this film. All it was was pictures of a school of sardines getting eaten by birds and dolphins (and a few sharks). That in and of itself isn't very exciting and to have to sit through 40 minutes of it (seriously the shots DON'T change) is pure torture. The best they manage to do is change the shots to slow motion near the end of the film. It really is lame for an IMAX film.