Deep Blue (2005)

Deep Blue (2005)

            Perhaps in a cynical attempt to cash in on the success of the James Cameron IMAX film
    ALIENS OF THE DEEP, we’re now treated to DEEP BLUE, which was made about three
    years ago under the auspices of the BBC. When the movie was released in the United Kingdom
    in 2003, it had narration by Michael Gambon. For its 2005 showings in the United States,
    Gambon has been supplanted by Pierce Brosnan.

            Directors and writers Alastair Fothergill and Andy Byatt structured the film as a sort of
    worldwide journey via the sea, beginning near the Falkland Islands in the southern Atlantic and
    journeying around the world, from Antarctica to the Arctic to the Pacific, with a stopover deep
    underwater.

            This is the sort of movie that once might have found a home in the classroom and now
    would be right at home on cable television, but I’m not entirely sure at whom the film is aimed.
    In spite of its G rating, younger children may be traumatized by watching the deaths of fish, sea
    lions, and baby whales. (The latter two are rather gruesome and bloody.) Teenagers undoubtedly
    will be bored silly, and adults may also find their minds wandering.

            Brosnan’s ponderous narration certainly doesn’t help. It is full of the usual clichés of the
    ocean as a place where birth, death and renewal occur with a final plea for environmental concerns.
    George Fenton’s overbearing score seems designed to counteract the somnambulant tone of the
    commentary.

            The best part of DEEP BLUE is the camera work, which swoops up for a bird’s-eye
    view and probes deep under the water to uncover some intriguing and hauntingly beautiful imagery,
    whether jellyfish or a coral reef.

                                            Rating:                        C
                                            MPAA rating:             G
                                            Running time:              83 mins.

                                                            Viewed at Magno Review Two