TMG Scale 6.5
Starring: Pierce Brosnan (Narrator) and lots of fish

The credits to this film quite predictably state “No animals were harmed during the making of this film.” This may be true. However,  hundreds of fish and very cute and  innocent sea mammals were ferociously eaten alive by their oceanic friends and neighbors.  Such is the irony of a movie that tries to craft a eco-political message out of the vicious world of nature.  Fact is, man is a wimpy puffin compared to what these sea creatures do to each other.

The film swam around  with no apparent script or theme.  It had no story or beginning or end. We were mostly left awash in a sea of haphazard fish tales.  (One can hardly resist these silly metaphors.) Compare this film to a masterpiece such as March of the Penguins (2005) or even perhaps the more modest Grizzly Man (2005) and you will see how a documentary can still have a storyline.

On the bright side this film is 84 minutes of cinematic marvel. TMG kept wondering ” How on earth did they film this?” There were ocean scenes and creatures I have not even seen in my near twenty years of late night addiction to the Discovery Channel. Unfortunately,  this film was like a long wait in a dental office lobby paging through one of those oversized coffee table books on sea life.  It was lots of impressive pictures that go nowhere.

Pierce Brosnan, while no Morgan Freeman, has a real talent for being a narrator. He has a soothing and balanced  voice and clearly resisted numerous opportunities to explain that sharks like their treats “shaken, not stirred.”

TMG is well aware many of the politically correct tree huggers of the world  have already declared this movie Oscar material.  It is about cute sea creatures. You cannot get more PC than that.  Some of these same folks walked out of this film in leather shoes as they disposed of their their plastic water bottles and climbed into their SUV’s.  It is like the mini-Teddy Kennedy’s, Al Gore-alikes or Sean Penn-aholics who condemn us commoners for our carbon footprint from their leather seats aboard luxury Gulfstream V’s, private yachts or one of their 15,000 square foot cribs.

TMG loves clean air, clean water, reasonable fishing practices and hates scum producing corporations like BP, Exxon and any company that produces hand held plastic water bottles. TMG believes a little balance in all things and that hypocrisy should only be served up in small portions.  You will have to pry my car and my airconditioner from my cold, dead hands.

If you have some time to kill and the fish aren’t biting at your local lake, take a break and you will enjoy this film.  Or go to Sam’s Club and buy yourself an oversized, coffee table book on whales of the world and check out the weekend seafood specials.