MOVIE REVIEW

Stressing preservation, the Imax film has images so vivid, viewers will be holding their breaths.

By Kevin Crust, Times Staff Writer

The Earth's oceans have been a popular subject for large-format films for many years with films such as "Into the Deep" and "Coral Reef Adventure" plowing the depths for fascinating images to bathe Imax screens around the world. It would be a mistake, however, to think that if you've seen one fish up close and personal you've seen them all. "Deep Sea 3D" is a total-immersion undersea adventure, in which the oceans' glories are on vivid display in three dimensions.

Following a shimmering title sequence, the film moves through a field of jellyfish that appears to surround your head like floating gumdrops. This is not an occasional illusion because the entire film envelops you in an incredible array of fascinating sea life. The effect is continuous and so successful that you'll find yourself holding your breath.

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Directed by veteran underwater filmmaker Howard Hall, "Deep Sea" stresses the symbiotic relationships of the ocean's citizens in which survival is based on the cooperation of some very odd bedfellows. The visuals are remarkable on their own, but the film also carries a salient commentary on the importance of preservation.

The rainbow nudibranch looks like a rag doll made of orange and magenta yarn, and its unlikely partner is the tune anemone, which looks like a miniature palm tree doing the hula as it's buffeted by the current. The nudibranch depends on raiding the tentacles of the anemone, digesting the poisonous cells and reconstituting them for its own defense. The anemones don't seem to mind, as they quickly grow back the tentacles. Countless other species provide services that are mutually beneficial as the cleaning of one fish can provide a meal for another.

Danny Elfman's score and the amped-up sound effects accompanying some of the stranger-looking creatures makes some sequences feel like an odd, lost Tim Burton nature film. Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet, in a reunion of sorts for the stars of "Finding Neverland," provide the narration.

'Deep Sea 3D'

MPAA rating: G

A Warner Bros. release. Director-cinematographer Howard Hall. Producers Michele Hall, Toni Myers. Music Danny Elfman. Running time: 40 minutes. At selected Imax theaters.