Despite the talents of Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud — the Oscar-nominated duo behind Winged Migration, who once again contribute their amazing, in-the-midst-of photography — the most striking thing about Oceans is its banality. Blame the perfunctory narration by Pierce Brosnan, the superficial science, the random vignettes jumping from dolphins to sea slugs and then to sea lions.
Or blame the requisite preaching to the choir about pollution and overfishing. Every year, for Earth Day, Disney execs feel obliged to dumb down nature (Earth last year, African Cats next).
They should take a hint from Alastair Fothergill’s inspiring 2003 film Deep Blue (also with Brosnan narrating) and the brilliant TV series Planet Earth — both of which show more than just a montage of fauna and color. Still, any film offering images of the bizarre Chinese sheepshead fish and the underwater turf war between rival crab gangs is worth a look.
