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Blue Planet II is bold, majestic, menacing
The BBC documentary will move and jolt you, inspire awe.
A giant trevally fish leaps gracefully out of the water; droplets spread and sparkle like diamonds, the music soars to a crescendo. The fish with the perpetual frown catches a bird in mid-air. The hunter becomes the prey and you are reminded that there is more drama occurring in our oceans than in all of Hollywood.
The BBC documentary Blue Planet II, is 90 delicious moments of David Attenborough untangling some of the mysteries of the ocean to the accompaniment of spellbinding visuals.
What does it take to survive in some of the most adverse conditions on the planet; what does change look like when you combine heedless human activity with one of the most delicate ecosystems on Earth.
As the camera delves deeper, you will enter the Twilight and Midnight ocean zones where creatures roam the edges of toxic lakes and hungry sharks feast on whale carcasses. The cinematography is superb. You can feel the buoyancy of the water, the frenzy of giant fish, the savagery of giant, cannibalistic Humboldt squid feasting on each other.
You will also feel the jolt of crashing icebergs in the Arctic Ocean, forcing mother walruses fight each other to keep their babies safe. And you will feel like cheering when false killer whales and bottlenose dolphins, natural enemies, form a close bond of friendship off the coast of New Zealand. As with Part I, the Hans Zimmer score accounts for a good part of the impact.
This documentary is majestic in scale and approach, and you will leave the theatre at bit wobbly at the thought of this giant, seething, living, thriving other planet now menacing our shores.
