Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

HD Moods Blu Ocean Blu-ray Movie Review

This engaging "ambient documentary" has some great footage, but at only 29 minutes seems too little of a good thing.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 14, 2010

“The ocean is the blue heart of our planet and must be protected.”—Dr. Sylvia Earle

Dr. Earle’s words are certainly wise, but the more jaded among you (and you know who you are) may want to know she’s evidently part of a group called PlanSea.org, which is founded by Blu Ocean’s producer-cameraman-editor, Ray Hollowell. Shameless self-promotion is almost as old as the ocean itself, so I personally won’t look for cross-promotional ties in this effort, out on niche label Topics’ HD Moods imprint, despite a couple of on screen appeals to visit the PlanSea website. What Blu Ocean does provide is a half hour or so of very engaging mostly underwater footage split into seven fairly brief segments. The “main feature” clocks in at a mere 29 minutes, and branches seamlessly to a four minute “extra” (if it can rightfully be termed that). There’s also a sort of easter egg hidden in the “Video” menu that gives the viewer another five minutes of interviews with the creative staff. All told, that’s only around 38 minutes of footage, roughly half what a typical HD Moods outing typically provides.

Dolphins getting all wet in 'Blu Ocean.'

Blu Ocean offers around three minutes each devoted to various segments. These include:

• Reef Friends
• Dance of the Dolphins
• Sunrises
• Majestic Sea Turtles
• Reflections of the Sea
• Journey of the Fish

After Journey comes to a close, the video branches, after a very brief moment of blackness, into four minutes of Ocean Surge. That’s the sum total of the content here, aside from the aforementioned interviews with the creative staff.

All of the segments are pretty much adequately described by their titles. Reef Friends follows schools of fish darting in and out of underwater labyrinths. Dance of the Dolphins follows the balletic exploits of our mammal friends. Sunrises offers some nicely vibrant orange-red footage of the sun climbing over the ocean and frequently ascending through various cloud formations. Majestic Sea Turtles has some of the best footage of Blu Ocean with some really subtly colored behemoths wading their way through the water. Another standout is Reflections of the Sea, which offers glinting, dappled patterns that water and sun create both on land and sea. Journey of the Fish seems a bit of a lackluster finale, with no real clear segment focus. Ocean Surge offers some nice footage of pounding waves hitting various coastal landscapes.

As in most of these “ambient television” offerings, the visuals are there to enjoy if you want to pay attention to them, but are also not so magnetic that you can’t take your eyes off of them. Those of you who enjoyed Planet Earth’s underwater escapades may well be entranced by a lot of the footage here, notably the turtles and reflections sequences, which up the visual ante somewhat from the rest of the proceedings. The soundtrack here has some appealing proto-fusion jazz work by multi-instrumentalist Alec Briguglo, though I personally tired of incessant major sevenths and found some of the piercing sax work not conducive to the flowing imagery being presented. Briguglo’s choice of flute on two or three other segment tracks seems a wiser choice for this sort of ostensibly “calm” video offering.

What may have increased Blu Ocean’s appeal and cachet would have been a supplementary documentary featuring Dr. Earle and perhaps others of a more scholarly bent discussing the dangers the ocean faces in a world rife with pollution and other harmful elements. As it stands, Blu Ocean is a pleasant enough diversion, with at least a couple of haunting images to recommend it, but at a mere 29 minutes, there’s not much return on your Blu-ray dollar.

HD Moods Blu Ocean Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Despite both the slipcase and the keepcase cover touting Blu Ocean as being in "Ultra Sharp 1080p," the Blu-ray from Topics is actually a perfectly fine, and in some cases exceptional, 1080i offering with a VC-1 encode in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Colors here are very vivid, with brilliantly saturated blues, and a really nice gradation of hues in some of the underwater footage. Detail is also quite nice a lot of the time, so that the multicolored specks in a giant sea turtle's shell can be made out in almost individual pixelled glory. The dappled sea segment has some really amazing footage which exploits Blu-ray's resolution perfectly, with some amazing play between light and shadow. Source material for Ocean Surge, the putative "extra," seems culled from either a non-high def source or with some technical issues (which may be why it wasn't included as part of the main feature). Things are a bit softer in Surge, with just the hint of video noise in some busy beach scenes.

HD Moods Blu Ocean Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Both a lossless LPCM 2.0 track and a standard Dolby Digital stereo track are included here, both offering the music of Alec Briguglio. I opted for the LPCM track, which sports a decidedly more robust low end than the DD 2.0 offering. The music here is pleasant, if never very challenging. The sax seems awfully brittle at times, especially when placed in the context of these soothing images. But fidelity here is exceptional, with no dropouts or distortions. There really aren't very many ambient water effects throughout this piece, other than in the short prologue (with the Earle quote above), so a surround mix is perhaps unwarranted here.

HD Moods Blu Ocean Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

I guess it all boils down to what you consider an extra. As with most HD Moods titles, there aren't any Top Menu options, and the Pop-up Menu is extremely limited. The Ocean Surge "supplement" branches right off the main Blu Ocean feature. If you go to the Video submenu, you'll see a Crew option, which offers 5:33 of crew interviews. It's all pretty standard fare. This piece could have used a full length documentary, perhaps showing the underwater filming techniques in full detail (there are snippets on the Crew feature), or even a full fledged documentary on saving the natural beauties of our oceans.

HD Moods Blu Ocean Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Blu Ocean is fine, as far as it goes. The problem is, it doesn't go nearly far enough. This would make an OK rental for a pleasant enough half hour of viewing, but I can't imaging too many people will want to purchase this particular HD Moods offering.