Posted by Jeppody on 2/28/06 at 07:01 AM

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Feb. 27, 2006

Deep Sea 3D

By Sheri Linden

Bottom line: Wow.


Many filmmakers speak of the need to decompress after making a movie, but the hardy Imax crew that spent a year shooting "Deep Sea 3D" had to undergo physical decompression on a daily basis.

They've brought back spectacular giant-screen footage from their year of travel to nine underwater locations. Kids will shriek with awe and delight, and grown-ups might join them as they duck the luminous moon jellyfish and shimmering glassy minnows that swim past them in a myriad profusion. An exuberant lesson in ecology that's full of extraordinary creatures, "Deep Sea" would make a great companion piece to "Finding Nemo" and will no doubt spark classroom discussion and research projects -- and perhaps inspire a new generation of ocean scientists.

From the opening scene, in which the surf comes rolling at you, the film is a dazzling experience. Director Howard Hall takes us up to the surface briefly to look at the Pacific's drifting kelp rafts, but mostly we're in the depths, up close and personal with their phantasmagoria of denizens.

Narrators Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet infuse the proceedings with a bit of playfulness. ("What's that?!" Winslet asks when a fish unfurls a proboscis-like appendage. "A proboscis," Depp replies with cool understatement.) The narration is designed to involve kids and get them thinking. Written by Hall, producer-editor Toni Myers and executive producer Graeme Ferguson, it doesn't overload viewers with facts, providing just enough tantalizing detail as the audience thrills, through 3-D lenses, to forests of tube anemones, ever-elegant manta rays, the California mantis shrimp -- the most powerful animal for its size on the planet -- and the six-foot wolf eel, not an eel but a character actor par excellence with its crinkly old-man face, complete with jowls.

A Tim Burton-esque sense of wonder and grotesquerie prevails; the basket star, with its curlicue tendrils, looks like something sprung straight from Burton's brain. So it's only fitting that frequent Burton collaborator Danny Elfman provides the score, some of it excerpted from his "Serenada Schizophrana." A strong contribution to the creative mix, Elfman's music ranges from Hawaiian-holiday ditties to choral surges and, when the carnivorous Humboldt squid looms into view, nightmare strings.

Without lecturing, Hall and his colleagues emphasize the importance of biological diversity, the linked destinies and interdependence of species. They offer vivid examples of symbiosis in the relationships that big shots like barracudas and green sea turtles enjoy with the small fish who clean them of algae. Late in the brief proceedings, "Deep Sea" touches on the dangers of overfishing and the unraveling balance among ecosystem populations. But it quickly presents an anodyne in footage of the mysterious annual coral spawning in the Gulf of Mexico, which occurs like clockwork on the eighth night after the August full moon.

Since Hall made 1994's "Into the Deep," the first giant-screen undersea film, for Imax co-founder Ferguson, there have been technological breakthroughs in the format. But it's still an arduous process, requiring about two hours underwater for each three minutes of footage. Be glad there are people passionate and talented enough to explore the ocean wilds with the world's highest-resolution camera. "Deep Sea 3D," along with the recent Imax films "Coral Reef Adventure" and "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea," is a glorious example of educational entertainment at its best.

DEEP SEA 3D
Warner Bros. Pictures
Imax Filmed Entertainment
Credits:
Director/director of photography: Howard Hall
Writers: Howard Hall, Toni Myers, Graeme Ferguson
Producers: Toni Myers, Michele Hall
Executive producers: Brad Ball, Graeme Ferguson
Music: Danny Elfman
Associate producer: Judy Carroll
Editor: Toni Myers
Narrators: Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet
MPAA rating G
Running time -- 40 minutes