Watch Aliens of the Deep For Free

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Aliens of the Deep is what a science documentary ought to be: visually awe inspiring with an amalgamation of real and rendered scenes and perhaps most importantly- narrated or explained by someone who knows what they are saying and not just reading their lines to cash in a cheque. James Cameron is the narrator, diver and director of this amazing documentary that juxtaposes a deep ocean dive with a space mission to one of the Galilean moons. The banter between the scientists aboard the Russian mission ship and Cameron's enthusiasm is a joy to watch.

The very minimal footage of the actual "AOTD" is "WOW" inducing, but you would expect much, much, more from a Documentary with this pedigree. We see maybe ten minutes of inspiring "real" footage but not enough to pad this really disappointing delivery of abyss dwellers.There is much giddy talk that is really embarrassing and seems like a bedtime story for preschoolers and the film as a whole is barely educational. There is one scene showing "the ugliest thing on the planet, look...it has little feet" and that is truly "amazing" but the little guy with the five toes is on screen for about 30 seconds and except for one more really interesting "i have know idea what that is", Angel looking creature (on screen for 30 seconds), that's it.The rest of the "Aliens of the Deep" consist of shrimp, crabs, and tube worms. Hardly enough for an IMAX and Cinema release.

A failure on several levels...Throughout his repertoire, Cameron has set out to film water, or more precisely, 'liquidity' -- it's his customary point of departure -- what world could be more cinematic?. It follows that he will try to make parallels between deep ocean and space exploration. Cameron is also an unabashed showoff, so he must clutter every visual with gadgetry -- the 'look what I can do' factor -- as an unsubtle wink at the audience...every movie he makes. The deep ocean photography should have been more than enough, but he then has to make a push for SETI and other 'cutting edge' research.And therein lies a big problem. Cameron uses the most fecklessly infantile animation ever wedged into a big-budget movie, complete with little green men with sped-up voices (extended DVD version), and NASA probes that make noise in the vacuum while firing the retrorockets...this is no way to bolster science.It all concludes with "The Abyss" finale of mirrored 'aliens' making 'friends' in the deep...how can one push forward cinematically by repeating one's own worst clunker?

When it comes to action movies, James Cameron is one of my favorite directors. In particular, "The Abyss" and "Terminator 2" are two of my all-time favorite movies. Like others, I'm disappointed to see that since "Titanic" Cameron is only making documentaries and I'm looking forward to see his "Battle Angel" (currently scheduled for a 2007 release), which will be his first feature in 10(!) years.I didn't really like "Expedition: Bismarck" and "Ghosts of the Abyss", so my expectations from "Aliens of the Deep" weren't that high. Still, I got disappointed. I watched the 95-min DVD version and felt like I was watching a "behind the scenes" featurette of the real movie.The movie promises to show us "aliens" from the bottom of the sea. It surprised me that during the entire duration, you don't get to see more than 10 minutes of that - most of them are the same creatures. TV shows like the excellent "The Blue Planet (2001)" by the BBC already gave us all these creatures (and many others not shown here) in a MUCH clearer view and better photography.Instead, this movie focuses on showing all the people and equipment involved in making the dives. It was interesting in the first 10 minutes and it would have been alright if I wanted to know more about the making of the movie. But it's not interesting to see Cameron and crew for 95 minutes discussing how things should be made.Except for the few short computer animations in the movie, I got a feeling that I was watching an unedited material. Cameron puts himself and lots of people with Ph.D. in front of the camera, but he is more interested in showing us them playing, making faces, modeling to the cameras and having really shallow discussions instead of giving some in-depth analysis of the subject.Most of the underwater dialog consists of "Wow" and "That is amazing". The narration is horrible right from the beginning and the lowest point - for me - was during the explanation how these creatures were first discovered, which actually used the phrase: "These scientists went like 'Wow!'".Most of the underwater material shows the submarines and the people instead of the creatures. Is it because they didn't find what they wanted and didn't have enough material to shows us? When you finally get to see some creatures, you have absolutely no explanations about them. So many educated scientists around and you don't even get to know the names of the creatures! You just watch it like you would if you dived yourself. Cameron himself sums it pretty well in one scene, when a beautiful jelly-like creature passes and he says "I have no idea what that is". I don't blame you - you're not a scientist, but what are all the people around for?Summing it all up - this movie was a big disappointment and boring enough for me to fast-forward parts of it. If you want to see the creatures promised here, see another documentary; if you want to see a good Cameron project - go and watch any of his brilliant action movies. But save yourself from watching this.