I had been been looking forward to this for years now. I love good documentaries, about science, the cosmos, nature or history. I love submarine movies. I am a geek. If anyone was going to love this, it was me.
But I didn't.
For starters, the geek in me was very disappointed next to no time was spent showing off the technology. How does it work? How do you build electronics and camera's and other equipment that can resist that pressure? How do you navigate or communicate at that depth ? I was dying to find out, but I learned nothing. Even when things go (very) wrong in early test dives, no explanation is given of what failed, why it failed, how they solved it. Meh!
Then there is the "plot"; I get it that some time will be spent on Cameron's history, why he wants to do that etc, but it takes forever. Is this movie about an expedition or about James Cameron? If only they spent half the time that Cameron claims to glorify himself to talk about the sub, I might have like this.
Finally, there is the (anti)climax of the film. Not sure if this should be considered a spoiler, but when he finally dives to the bottom of the Marianas trench, it seems like he spent all of 2 minutes on the bottom and the most exciting thing he saw was some mud sliding. You don't even get to see a trench or underwater relief, let alone anything alive. Just sand. Now I get it, this was a documentary, not a scripted movie, but really, if that is all there is to see there, what a waste of time and money. Not too mention a waste of my time.
But I didn't.
For starters, the geek in me was very disappointed next to no time was spent showing off the technology. How does it work? How do you build electronics and camera's and other equipment that can resist that pressure? How do you navigate or communicate at that depth ? I was dying to find out, but I learned nothing. Even when things go (very) wrong in early test dives, no explanation is given of what failed, why it failed, how they solved it. Meh!
Then there is the "plot"; I get it that some time will be spent on Cameron's history, why he wants to do that etc, but it takes forever. Is this movie about an expedition or about James Cameron? If only they spent half the time that Cameron claims to glorify himself to talk about the sub, I might have like this.
Finally, there is the (anti)climax of the film. Not sure if this should be considered a spoiler, but when he finally dives to the bottom of the Marianas trench, it seems like he spent all of 2 minutes on the bottom and the most exciting thing he saw was some mud sliding. You don't even get to see a trench or underwater relief, let alone anything alive. Just sand. Now I get it, this was a documentary, not a scripted movie, but really, if that is all there is to see there, what a waste of time and money. Not too mention a waste of my time.