Aliens of the Deep Movie Review:


Cameron clearly became obsessed by the ocean while making Titanic. This is his second underwater Imax 3D movie, here focussing on the otherworldly realities of deep-sea creatures. It's visually stunning, but can't resist going slightly too far with its premise.

The intriguing idea is that exploring the ocean floor is as revelatory as travelling deep into outer space. So Cameron invites experts from the space programme onto deep-diving subs, exploring the kind of geography and, perhaps, life they might one day find on another planet. As the astonishing diversity of undersea life shows itself on-screen, their observations are kept to a minimum--basically a lot of "wows" combined with Cameron's lame "rock on" exclamations.

Since many of these creatures have never been seen before, even the biologists are speechless. These are truly mind-bending animals that look like parachutes, tubes or fish-toad hybrid things. Nobody has a clue what they are or how they function, so they're rarely explained at all. But they are staggeringly beautiful to look at, especially as they swim in front of us in gigantic 3D! Just seeing them is enough, although it would be nice to have more than merely the gushing amazement of the submarine passengers to help us understand.

As the film progresses it becomes increasingly clear that Cameron's interest isn't under the oceans after all. Eventually he abandons the sea altogether for a series of increasingly elaborate flights of fancy to distant planets. These sequences are impeccably animated--they look gorgeous and pose interesting questions about the possibility of life on other planets. But they take over the film, pulling us from reality into conjecture. Cameron is basically saying that the oceans are only a practice pool for deep space travel, which is what he thinks is really important.

But after watching this film, it seems like we should abandon space exploration entirely and concentrate on finding out what life is like right here on earth. Because we clearly have absolutely no idea what's happening on two-thirds of our own planet!



Rich Cline

Site Contents Copyright© The Z Review, unless used with permission.This site has no intention to infringe on the rights of the film owners of Aliens of the Deep and intellectual copyright holders of the movies mentioned herein & hold copyright over the movie, characters, merchandise & storyline.