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A mother and baby walrus bond in Walt Disney’s new, phenomenally photographed nature documentary “Oceans.” |
If you’ve seen the TV commercials or theater trailers for “Oceans,” you already know what you’re in for.
Lots and lots of breathtaking footage of the strange and fascinating creatures that inhabit the world’s five oceans.
• Giant whales shoot to the surface, captured in magnificent, awe-inspiring slow-motion.
• Crabs comically climb into their shells to create instant mobile homes.
• A leopard seal tenderly plays with her offspring below thick slabs of white ice.
Like Walt Disney’s earlier nonfiction feature “Earth,” “Oceans” operates like a “Hooked on Classics” version of nature documentaries. It’s not really one movie. It’s a greatest hits of a zillion nature films all compressed into a single work.
“Oceans” skips around from one subject to the next, from one ocean to the next, with nimble alacrity. This has both positive and negative consequences.
Directors Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud (with editors Catherine Mauchain and Vincent Schmitt) move the film briskly along so nobody can possibly be bored.
Yet, many times the sharks and cuttlefish and other creatures prove to be so fascinating, it becomes frustrating to be yanked away to meet the next guest sea critter. (Read more…)