Camden New Journal - Movie Review: Under The Sea 3D

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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with DAN CARRIER
Published: 12 February 2009

The Cameron brothers allow sea life to take a good look at themselves

Worth sinking proceeds of Titanic into adventure

UNDER THE SEA 3D
Directed by Howard Hall
Certificate U

AFTER James Cameron made that Oscar monster of a movie Titanic, he was able to embark on a quest he had been building up to for some time.
Using the proceeds from the blockbuster, he and his brother, a marine exploration expert, designed and built two robotic submarines with cameras on their noses.
They took them into the Atlantic, found the rusting hulk of the Titanic, dropped the cameras overboard and then documented what nearly 100 years under water had done.
Cameron’s pioneering use of I-Max cameras in challenging conditions led to a super film being made on the Russian-US space station, and the result was screened to great acclaim at the Science Museum.
This watery offering is the natural heir to Cameron’s superb efforts and demonstrates how the I-Max system lends itself well to this type of movie.
Forget watching Batman in this format – it should be for such adventures as this, where the experience is essentially visual rather than guided by dialogue.
And this release – perfectly timed for half term – is utterly compelling. We join the crew of the good ship Seven Seas on a voyage to some of the most incredible oceanic sights in the world. From Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to Indonesia and across the Pacific islands of Papua New Guinea, a film crew led by Howard Hall have collated footage that seems to swim around you.
Among the creatures we encounter are the typical fare of such films – the Great White Shark and Giant Stingrays. Yet there are more discoveries to keep you sitting there with your mouth open like one of the stars of the show: the superbly camouflaged stone fish, the most poisonous on the planet; cuttlefish; sea dragons; translucent, alien-like jellyfish; turtles and 6ft eels.
Narrated by Jim Carrey, this marvel-inducing film has a serious but not preachy message about the effects our behaviour is having on such an inspiring wilderness.
It will keep both you and your young charges enthralled from beginning to end. And just wait for the bit with the sea lions.

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