Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Such a frustrating disappointment

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Beautiful shot. Stunning visuals. But Short. Too short. Incoherent. It jumps from whale to whale to dolphin. It even has a manatee cameo (it's called whales & dolphins...not sea mammals?) It doesn't seem to have a clear goal of narration. Boring. Yes- I found the narration dull and lifeless. Didn't give much information, -sounded more like filler material. I had hoped to new insights to whales & dolphins, never before seen events, I dunno...something Cousteau? The environmental message to preachy. And on top of that delivered flat. I think the emphasis was on 3D -not on whales & dolphins. Not the worst,but not one worthy of the name Cousteau either.

This movie gives you the feeling that it is both educational and entertaining. But it doesn't quite work completely. Especially if you have seen "Deep Water" (3-D), than you will find this quite a downfall compared to that other documentary. While the speaker try their best, Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet are hard to top ... actually they are not able too.But it's not the voice artists fault that it doesn't quite work. It has quite a few good moments (I watched it 3-D, but not in an IMAX), but overall seems to lack some substance and the fine line Deep Sea was walking, being informative and a good listen too. The pictures are good enough and if you like underwater shots, than you will be more than satisfied anyways. But if you only watch one underwater documentary, make it Deep Sea 3-D

I went and saw this in IMAX 3D yesterday. The footage is spectacular and the 3D is the best I've seen. The music is also very serene. There is footage of several different species of water mammals (mostly Cetacea), including Humpback Whale, Beluga, Right Whale, Bottlenose dolphin, Common Dolphin, Manatee, and more. Daryl Hannah narrates the film and she does a great job. There is a little bit of conservation preaching that seems a little abrupt at the end, but not something that I am against. Though this film is short, and perhaps not the most educational due to the brevity, it definitely provided a great IMAX experience.

Like the gentle giants that make up the latter half of this film's title, Jean-Michel Cousteau's latest production has grace, but it's also slow and ponderous. The producer's last outing, "Sharks-3D" had the same problem. It's hard to imagine a boring shark documentary, but they somehow managed it. The only draw for Sharks was it's passable 3D, which is always fun when dealing with wondrous worlds beneath the ocean's surface. But even that was only passable. Poor focus in some scenes made the production seems amateurish. With Dolphins and Whales, the technology is all but wasted. Cloudy scenes and too many close-ups of the film's giant subjects do nothing to take advantage of IMAX's stunning 3D capabilities. There are far too few scenes of any depth or variety. Close-ups of these awesome creatures just look flat and there is often only one creature in the cameras field, so there is no contrast of depth. Jean-Michel Cousteau is trying to follow in his father's footsteps, but when you've got Shark-Week on cable, his introspective and dull treatment of his subjects is a constant disappointment.