Cheap Journey Into Amazing Caves (Large Format) (DVD) (Liam Neeson) (Stephen Judson, Greg MacGillivray) Price

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Customer Reviews of Journey Into Amazing Caves (Large Format)

The great soundtrack by the Moody Blues is not readily apparent and is played down except at the end and beginning. The narration is sometimes annoying and juvenile, providing information that teenagers might find interesting. I expected more cave shots and not science lessons.

However, this is a great film and includes a "behind the scenes" story that is every bit as interesting as the main movie. The soundtrack in itself if better as a separate CD.

Widescreen alert!
If you have a widescreen TV, you won't be disappointed by this film. Like all IMAX features, it's short but captures the most photogenic scenery imaginable. It's not much more than an introduction to the world of caving, and it focuses on the search for extremophiles -- microorganisms which thrive in the most hostile of environments. And in classic IMAX fashion, the film crew risks as much danger as any of the spelunkers but is so transparent you'll forget anyone else was there.

This film is replete with scenes of tiny humans in vast landscapes, cool blue glacial walls, breathtaking canyon vistas, and surreal, silent palatial caves. The DTS soundtrack based on the music of the Moody Blues is perfectly expansive and well-suited for the glorious images.

Get this DVD. Trust me.

Great imagery with typical IMAX juvenile story
This is a well-produced DVD and the imagery is very high resolution. Contrast and color are very good. Liam Neeson is an outstanding narrator. Most of the imagery of the movie is great. Very dramatic panoramas, especially the helicopter fly-throughs. You will enjoy watching the movie once.

Unfortunately, the reason I don't rate it more than 3 stars is Amazing Caves suffers the common IMAX shortcoming that it has been produced as an all ages, all audiences film ... with a juvenile story, written at the 4th grade level. Too much of this brief 40 minute movie is wasted tending to the silly plot.

One can sit through it once and enjoy it, certainly if you have kids with you, and at a real IMAX theater. Your kids might enjoy watching it more than once, especially younger daughters since the two main characters are women scientists/adventurers. But with kids being so smart and worldly these days, even 6th graders would tire of the simplistic story and narration.

Why can't there be IMAX movies with appeal at a more intelligent level? Everest is a good example of an IMAX movie which does succeed in appealing to all audiences, but isn't written at a juvenile level.

The great caving and nature imagery in Amazing Caves is very frequently interrupted so they can keep tending to their story line of two women on their caving exploration and adventure, always "getting in contact" via a hoaky-looking simulated web video multimedia laptop screen with a small class of kids somewhere. Of course it is simulated and plain silly. There is no live contact with anyone. Probably filmed months apart. Yet they keep returning to this .... story, at least 10 times during the movie. Very annoying. Maybe it will appeal to young kids ...

Since IMAX movies are so short anyway, why don't they produce an alternate-cut of IMAX movies so that when 6 months later they release it on DVD, they can include the theatrical, all-ages juvenile story film, and a more intelligent, less pandering version with more interesting and meaningful narration, and cutting out the 30% of the film wasted on hoaky story devices and replacing it with more excellent, dramatic imagery. I know this means extra work, but it would likely result in more DVD sales. Maybe they could even show both versions (Kids, Grown-Ups) at the theaters.

I have a large-screen projection system (162") with 10-channel surround. I have a large collection of IMAX movies. I am always looking for good, high-resolution nature, space and science movies. I just wish that more IMAX movies were actually worth watching multiple times, without having to suffer through juvenile stories, plot devices and elementary-school writing.

If you want to see the movie for its good imagery, just rent somewhere or it or buy it on Amazon. You can always sell it again in the Amazon Marketplace, just like I did.