Fish doc gets schooled
Cousteau-led film is visually stunning but lacks message
Well-meaning but unfocused, Wonders of the Sea 3D is proof that you can have too much of a good thing. The underwater eco/nature documentary — the poster calls it “a visual feast with an important message” — would work wonders if trimmed to 40 minutes and shown in science museum.
But even at a relatively brief 82 minutes, it feels like a stretch at the multiplex.
Wonders opens awkwardly, with Arnold Schwarzenegger grinning (in 2D) at the camera. “Hello!” he barks. “Throughout the years, I’ve done so many different kinds of work. But never this kind.” A conspiratorial wink. “Narrator of a documentary film. So why now? Why this film?”
I’ve got one: Why doesn’t he narrate the whole damn movie? There are probably 15 minutes of Arnold’s voice in the film, interspersed with those of oceanographers Jean-Michel Cousteau (son of Jacques) and Céline and Fabien (grandkids), at one point shamelessly begging the actor to do a quick “I’ll be back” to describe a migrating fish species.
The film follows the Cousteau family around the world as they visit a coral reef near Fiji; kelp and mangrove forests off the coast of California; and then to the Bahamas. The images are beautiful, including nudibranchs (a kind of mollusk) grazing the ocean floor like contented cows, and octopuses so adept at camouflage they put chameleons to shame. Although the musical choices are sometimes suspect, like the vaguely Arabic “snake charmer” tune over morays, which, we’ve just been told, are not snakes.
And what exactly is the film trying to achieve?
If it’s a discussion of climate change, reef acidification and the dangers of disturbing the bottom rung of a very long food ladder then Wonders of the Sea communicates in only the broadest strokes. If the aim is to showcase the Cousteaus’ glorious home movies, that’s fine too, but then why shoehorn Schwarzenegger into the picture?
In the end, the “visual feast” is delicious, but the “important message” could fit on a fortune cookie. Wonders of the Sea enters a hefty field of environmental documentaries and does little to stand apart from the shoal.
Wonders of the Sea 3D opens across Canada on Feb. 1.