Oceans (2010)

Fabulous micro-closeups, unbelievable lighting above and below the surface and even at night, and beautiful music make up only part of the experience that the great and powerful Disney has brought to this sequel to Earth. This time the narrator is Pierce Brosnan, who blends just the right proportions of gravity and casualness; the directors are Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud (co-directors of the magnificent Winged Migration (Le peuple migrateur -2001), while Perrin produced The Chorus (Les choristes - 2004), a wonderful movie about a boys' choir, Microcosmos (1996), about insects, which has been on my to-see list for a long time, and has a huge and varied resumé, starting with an acting gig at age 5); and the music is by Bruno Coulais (composer for The Chorus, Winged Migration, and more). Disneynature does it again (they have more to come: we saw a trailer for one called African Cats), opening this one on Earth Day 2010, as Earth opened about a year ago. Unlike Earth, Oceans doesn't return to specific families of creatures, but instead moves from school to pod, ocean to ocean. 

Jack's favorite scene was the reveal of the sphere of fish whirling about each other. Mine was the air and water ballet of the dolphins and sardines racing along, with the seagulls diving into the sardines to feed, but it won only by a nose, er, beak over one with other gulls (or were they cormorants?) picking off the baby tortoises on the beach. These sequences were like fine athletes excelling at their sport. Only one walrus scene, but that gives me license to say koo-koo-ka-choo. The red "silk scarf" creature won the beauty contest over many worthy competitors, some of whose relatives Jack, Amy, and I saw just a few months ago at the Georgia Aquarium. 

 Here's an NPR segment about the movie and you will find clips, photos, and more available at this Disney link. If you liked any of the movies referenced above, as well as The March of the Penguins (La marche de l'empereur - 2005), you will love this as well. G rated other than the violence against some crabs getting their claws pulled off ("It's just a flesh wound!") and the poor baby tortoises.