Review of Dolphins (2000) by Edith N — 09 May 2010

You know, when the cover of a movie brags about the songs by Sting included, one rather assumes he, you know, wrote something new. And I suppose, if he did the arrangements, that might count. Maybe. However, I kind of don't think it does. Don't get me wrong--I [i]like[/i] "Englishman in New York." I just don't see what it has to do with dolphins. I mean, Sting's got kids--one would think he'd be looking forward to the opportunity to do kid-friendly songs, and what's more kid-friendly than dolphins? But no--"When We Dance." Which, again, I like. But still.

It's very intelligent of IMAX to give us Pierce Brosnan as a narrator again. I would listen to that man say just about anything. He has such a lovely, soothing voice. And here, we've got dolphins--this means more watching light on water and things swimming and whatnot. Lovely. I'll admit to caring less about the actual, you know, dolphin researchers interviewed than I do about the pretty pictures. This may well be because dolphins are not a primary focus of study for me. I did a report on them in fourth grade, but fourth grade was a long time ago.

We do learn a fair amount about dolphins here, I'll admit, even when we're, um, not paying the closest attention to the movie. We learn some about dolphin language. We learn about the emotional connections that dolphins form. We see a dolphin birth. And we learn not to mess with them, because they're actually pretty fierce, for all they're cute. Yes, sure, a researcher was protected from a hammerhead shark by a dolphin. However, there are two factors at work there--one, dolphins are pretty ferocious toward sharks just in general; we learned on [i]MythBusters[/i] a while back that sharks actively avoid dolphins. The other is that it's a human that the dolphin had developed a relationship with; before that development, the dolphin actually attacked humans on a pretty regular basis.

The fine people at IMAX bring us some pretty interesting stuff. I suspect, since it's mostly educational, quite a lot of it will be in the library catalog. This means that the two we've done thus far will hardly be the last of the IMAX documentaries. I'm sure there'll be one on the Grand Canyon when we get to "G." Or something. The Grand Canyon. I'm pretty sure there's a good one about volcanos. All kinds of things. And I'm looking forward to it, because IMAX is half about the learning and half about the amazing photography.

However, there's really not much to say, here. I think this would be an excellent film to show small children if you're looking for an educational film, but that's pretty much what I have left to say. It's lovely; kids will probably like it. Not much of a review, I know.