It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

It's important to note there are TWO versions of this film. Jacques Perrin's original runs 104 minutes and is narrated by Perrin in French. Disney bought the film, cut 20 minutes (much of it critical of human activity endangering the oceans and animal habitats), junked Perrin's spare narration, which lets you wonder at the sights on view, and substituted a gabby but emotionally chilly commentary by Pierce Brosnan.Perrin's original version is not available in the US, per contract with Disney. The original is available in Europe on DVD and Blu-Ray (but unplayable on most US machines) but it seems to lack English subtitles. So you're pretty much stuck with Disney edition.The original, however, is to my mind better and much more in line with Perrin's "Winged Migration" than the Disney version. The best that can be said for the US edition is that plays down the "humanizing" of animal life that was an annoy hallmark of Disney's True-Life Adventures of the 1950s.

As this film had Disney associated with it, I was braced for some overly verbose and intrusive narration, dripping with sentimentality, obtuse observations, or silliness, but was pleasantly surprised.With a relatively restrained, fairly minimal and intelligent narration, I found I could focus easily on the images themselves. Since this is my main desire when watching nature films, I was very happy with it.The photography is nothing short of astonishing. The animals are usually clearly presented in the context of their particular environment, and the editing is good. As well, there are animals shown that I've never heard of, that are really strange and beautiful.

I was looking forward to seeing this, since I've always been a fan of quality nature films, however, I found myself very disappointed with this film. If you have ever seen the truly beautiful, artistic, and utterly poetic nature film "Deep Blue", which came out from the English a few years ago, you are going to see far too many ironic similarities in this Disney production. Yes, they are both ocean films, and there are bound to be similarities, of course, but you will notice that Disney seemed to follow far too closely in their footsteps, even down to whom they chose to narrate (Pierce Brosnan)!! There are several actors one can choose to do a compelling narration - you do not have to choose the very same one. I'm not sure I understand why a company like Disney, who once were the masters of imagination, uniqueness, & fantasy, fail so miserably over these past 2 decades. Also, this film had approximately 1/4 of what "Deep Blue" had. If you want to watch a truly remarkable ocean film, see "Deep Blue", and pass over this one.

"Oceans" qualifies as a visual spectacle of the sea and its zillions of inhabitants in all shapes, sizes, and colors serving one purpose or another and sometimes winding up as the snack of a bigger occupant. The scenes of the baby sea turtles scrambling in broad daylight across the sands only to be snatched up by the frigate birds; the scenes of the dolphins feeding on an underwater tapestry of tuna along with other predators, like birds, participating in the feast; and the scenes of stone fish sucking absent-minded damsel fish down makes this documentary, narrated by Pierce Brosnan, a hypnotic experience. Clocking in at 84 minutes, co-directors Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud make this documentary experience of marine life an interesting aquatic epic. Everything boils down to a confrontation between other species and the film breaks down into a series of stories about encounters. The cinematography is terrific. The scene of opposing armies of spider crabs marching toward each other in a frontal assault almost looks like the spiders in "Starship Troopers." The monstrously huge blue whales sliding through the depths of the deep are poetic. Shots of penguins lunge up out of the ocean through cracks in the ice still look just as fresh and exciting as they did before in other documentaries. Eventually, Perrin and Cluzaud cannot resist the temptation to make a statement about human pollution of the ocean. Satellites photograph the path of pollution from the rivers into the ocean."Oceans" is great to look at, but it is designed as a generalist form of entertainment. Indeed, the visuals overshadow the narrative, despite Pierce Brosnan evocative line readings. For the record, Perrin and Cluzaud spent four years lensing this atmospheric homage to the sea.