Oceans is a nature documentary with ADHD; we never stick with a topic for more than three or four minutes before we switch to a new one. Beyond "Things found in the ocean" there isn't really a narrative or theme to what we are seeing. They'll show us a group of dolphins and say "These are dolphins; they are pretty cool. Here are a couple of facts about dolphins" and then "Now look at this ugly fish; doesn't it look all fucked up?". It's just a series of quick little animal facts interspersed with "Humans suck". There needs to be more of a context for what we are seeing. It's been about a day and individual scenes have long since melted away. The only scenes I vividly remember end up being a perfect example of what's wrong with Oceans. They show us an "Eel Ballet" which is just eels poking out of the ocean floor and waving around while they play obnoxious ballet music. Then they say "crabs are marching", play a loud, cliche marching song and show us what can only be called "Crab War". There is a large group of crabs going to the left and a large group of crabs going to the right and the meet in the middle for crab war. Okay, interesting, but what are you actually showing us? Are these rival crab clans colliding for a battle or are they just climbing over each other? What is the context here? Ell Ballet and Crab War take up maybe five minutes, but they are the most memorizing, confusing, and aggravating five minute in the whole documentary. Don't get me wrong, Crab War has an inherent level of enticement, but we need details and a corny score doesn't count. As a whole, Oceans is lacking context. There aren't different sections or segments and nothing gets a real spotlight; it's all flashes of animals for 80 minutes. It ends up kind of boring, especially with Pierce Brosnan narrating. Brosnan is a good actor, but his voice doesn't hit that right level of calming that a David Attenborough can do. Brosnan was putting me to sleep. Oceans is neither particularly informative or interesting which makes a pretty sad documentary.
Oceans is a nature documentary with ADHD; we never stick with a topic for more than three or four minutes before we switch to a new one. Beyond "Things found in the ocean" there isn't really a narrative or theme to what we are seeing. They'll show us a group of dolphins and say "These are dolphins; they are pretty cool. Here are a couple of facts about dolphins" and then "Now look at this ugly fish; doesn't it look all fucked up?". It's just a series of quick little animal facts interspersed with "Humans suck". There needs to be more of a context for what we are seeing. It's been about a day and individual scenes have long since melted away. The only scenes I vividly remember end up being a perfect example of what's wrong with Oceans. They show us an "Eel Ballet" which is just eels poking out of the ocean floor and waving around while they play obnoxious ballet music. Then they say "crabs are marching", play a loud, cliche marching song and show us what can only be called "Crab War". There is a large group of crabs going to the left and a large group of crabs going to the right and the meet in the middle for crab war. Okay, interesting, but what are you actually showing us? Are these rival crab clans colliding for a battle or are they just climbing over each other? What is the context here? Ell Ballet and Crab War take up maybe five minutes, but they are the most memorizing, confusing, and aggravating five minute in the whole documentary. Don't get me wrong, Crab War has an inherent level of enticement, but we need details and a corny score doesn't count. As a whole, Oceans is lacking context. There aren't different sections or segments and nothing gets a real spotlight; it's all flashes of animals for 80 minutes. It ends up kind of boring, especially with Pierce Brosnan narrating. Brosnan is a good actor, but his voice doesn't hit that right level of calming that a David Attenborough can do. Brosnan was putting me to sleep. Oceans is neither particularly informative or interesting which makes a pretty sad documentary.
