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Rating:  -
This is the most misleadlingly (is that a word?)titled movie I have ever seen. Amazing caves? What caves? The first 15 minutes of this reletively short 40 minute film don't take place in any cave. All they do is talk about them. Then when they finally enter a cave they are there for a few seconds. The few and far between cave scenes are interspersed with lots kayaking scenes, laboratory scenes, and classroom scenes. Was this film funded by the pharmasutical industry? The lead scientist in the film is always saying how she does this cave dwelling stuff to find exrtremophiles that will create new cures for diseases. Blechh! I wanted a movie about caves that showed beautiful caves. Granted, the latter half of the film provided more cave time but it was too little too late with too much of an environmental-disease-curing propaganda feel to it than I could stomach. It should have been titled "How To Search for New Cures in a Few Caves while Being Environmentally Conscious." Somehow I don't think that title would have sold many IMAX tickets or DVD's.
Rating:  -
First off, the image quality of the HD disk is incredibly impressive. Yes, you need to have a PC hooked to an HDTV, but with the popularity of the new Media Center Edition (MCE) computers, this is much more mainstream than it was a year ago. I was an early adopter of the MCE system and I think it's the only way to watch High Definition DVD's.
As to the program itself, this is one of the funnest DVD's to watch over and over again. There's not too much of a story, but the music, narration, and cinematography is completely captivating. The underwater scenes and ice cave sequences are beautiful. I have two small kids, and they would much rather watch this than Nickelodeon.
Rating:  -
Two stars, because:
- The music by The Moody Blues is intrusive. It's everywhere, all the time, telling you how to feel and what to think. It's like watching the movie with someone who won't shut up. I tried finding an additional soundtrack without the music, or maybe with the music toned down a bit, but no such luck. If I'm ever going to see this film again, it'll have to be with the volume off.
- One of the climbers is incessantly repeating that they're doing this because it might lead to the cure for some disease. Just in case we thought they were crazy adventurers and not scientists. You even get the obligatory shot of a scientist doing scientific things inside a laboratory. I want CAVES! I don't care why they do it, I won't judge...
- There aren't nearly enough caves.
Rating:  -
This is a well-produced DVD and the imagery is very high resolution. Contrast and color are very good. Liam Neeson is an outstanding narrator. Most of the imagery of the movie is great. Very dramatic panoramas, especially the helicopter fly-throughs. You will enjoy watching the movie once.
Unfortunately, the reason I don't rate it more than 3 stars is Amazing Caves suffers the common IMAX shortcoming that it has been produced as an all ages, all audiences film ... with a juvenile story, written at the 4th grade level. Too much of this brief 40 minute movie is wasted tending to the silly plot.
One can sit through it once and enjoy it, certainly if you have kids with you, and at a real IMAX theater. Your kids might enjoy watching it more than once, especially younger daughters since the two main characters are women scientists/adventurers. But with kids being so smart and worldly these days, even 6th graders would tire of the simplistic story and narration.
Why can't there be IMAX movies with appeal at a more intelligent level? Everest is a good example of an IMAX movie which does succeed in appealing to all audiences, but isn't written at a juvenile level.
The great caving and nature imagery in Amazing Caves is very frequently interrupted so they can keep tending to their story line of two women on their caving exploration and adventure, always "getting in contact" via a hoaky-looking simulated web video multimedia laptop screen with a small class of kids somewhere. Of course it is simulated and plain silly. There is no live contact with anyone. Probably filmed months apart. Yet they keep returning to this .... story, at least 10 times during the movie. Very annoying. Maybe it will appeal to young kids ...
Since IMAX movies are so short anyway, why don't they produce an alternate-cut of IMAX movies so that when 6 months later they release it on DVD, they can include the theatrical, all-ages juvenile story film, and a more intelligent, less pandering version with more interesting and meaningful narration, and cutting out the 30% of the film wasted on hoaky story devices and replacing it with more excellent, dramatic imagery. I know this means extra work, but it would likely result in more DVD sales. Maybe they could even show both versions (Kids, Grown-Ups) at the theaters.
I have a large-screen projection system (162") with 10-channel surround. I have a large collection of IMAX movies. I am always looking for good, high-resolution nature, space and science movies. I just wish that more IMAX movies were actually worth watching multiple times, without having to suffer through juvenile stories, plot devices and elementary-school writing.
If you want to see the movie for its good imagery, just rent somewhere or it or buy it on Amazon. You can always sell it again in the Amazon Marketplace, just like I did.
Rating: -
The concept is great, but the film leaves you wanting for more. First off, getting only 35 minutes of story seems somewhat of a shortcut for the money you spend on a DVD. The subject matter is caves, and if you are interested in the strange beauty of these areas like I am, you are not satisfied with the film. They spend more time on the human element and diversions such as the kayaking mentioned in an earlier review. They needed to dedicated more time to showing the wonderful formations that could be found inside the caves.
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