8 | / 10 |
Users | 3.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
In a sleepy lagoon off the coast of Japan lies a shocking secret that a few desperate men will stop at nothing to keep hidden from the world. In Taiji, Japan, former dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry has come to set things right after a long search for redemption. In the 1960s, it was O'Barry who captured and trained the 5 dolphins who played the title character in the international television sensation "Flipper." One fateful day, a heartbroken Barry came to realize that these deeply sensitive, highly intelligent and self-aware creatures must never be subjected to human captivity again. This mission has brought him to Taiji, a town that appears to be devoted to the wonders and mysteries of the sleek, playful dolphins and whales that swim off their coast. But in a remote, glistening cove, surrounded by barbed wire and "Keep Out" signs, lies a dark reality. It is here, under cover of night, that the fishermen of Taiji, driven by a multi-billion dollar dolphin entertainment industry and an underhanded market for mercury-tainted dolphin meat, engage in an unseen hunt. The nature of what they do is so chilling and the consequences are so dangerous to human health that they will go to great lengths to halt anyone from seeing it.
Starring: Hayden Panettiere, Mandy-Rae Cruikshank, Charles Hambleton, Simon Hutchins, Isabel LucasDocumentary | 100% |
Nature | 75% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English, English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
It’s rare to encounter a documentary that plays out like a caper thriller, contains viscerally disturbing imagery and manages to be both infuriating and inspiring, all at the same time. And yet that’s what we’re confronted with with The Cove, the Oscar winning piece which has raised considerable international hackles, especially in Japan, while also becoming both a source of pride for environmentalists and a rather more contentious film for those who insist it overly sensationalizes a supposedly age old tradition, not to mention outright misrepresents several facts. Where you come down will probably be largely a function of how you feel about the wholesale slaughter of dolphins and whales, a subject which was also at the core of another recent Blu-ray I reviewed, At the Edge of the World. What makes The Cove so spectacularly involving is the personal story of Ric O’Barry, the man who actually fostered the worldwide fascination with dolphins some 50 years ago, when he trained the five females who would become known to worldwide television audiences as the most iconic dolphin of all time, Flipper. O’Barry had no compunctions about capturing and training the mammals back then, as a vintage documentary excerpted in The Cove aptly proves. This relic of a bygone age congratulates O’Barry and his then-cronies for “bringing home” a captured female, who obviously—to the filmmakers anyway—now finally “feels safe.” Part of The Cove’s inarguable emotional resonance comes from O’Barry’s conversion as it were to an environmental activist after Cathy, one of the females who portrayed Flipper, ostensibly committed suicide in O’Barry’s arms by refusing to take another breath (O’Barry inists dolphins can choose whether or not to breathe, and can thus put themselves out of their misery if need be).
The Cove's AVC encoded 1080p transfer (in 1.78:1) is occasionally hobbled by the very source elements which give the documentary such an air of undercover intrigue. O'Barry and his crew utilize a whole variety of subterfuges to capture their footage, including infrared and night vision cameras, and as a result some of the images here are extremely soft and grainy. But that goes with the almost "spy" ethos that underlies a lot of The Cove. There's also passing usage of stock footage, some of which is not up to current hi-def standards. The rest of the film, and the vast majority of it, looks nicely sharp and well detailed, though a lot of it was obviously shot on the fly under trying circumstances. Colors are well saturated, sometimes horrifyingly so, as in the climax when scores of dolphins are slaughtered before our very eyes. Interview segments also reveal a wealth of fine detail.
The Cove's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix isn't overly immersive, but it gets the job done in a suitably professional manner. Surrounds do kick in with some aplomb in some of the Taiji scenes, where encroaching groups of residents try to keep the filmmakers from shooting the carnage. There's also some nice underwater recordings of both whale songs and dolphin calls that are very evocative. Fidelity is very good throughout, with all of O'Barry's on camera statements and voiceover narration clear and easy to hear. This isn't a blockbuster sonic mix by any stretch, but for a documentary, it's reasonably well modulated and provides a decent aural experience.
The Cove comes with these supplements:
The Cove builds briskly toward one of the most harrowing denouements of any documentary, and the footage of scores of dolphins being brutally assaulted is not easily taken in or forgotten. This film has sparked an international uproar and hopefully O'Barry's ardent wish that the wholesale slaughter and/or capture of dolphins will end in his lifetime will be realized by acolytes who are moved to action after having seen this devastating film. Highly recommended.
2006
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2012
2001
IMAX
2004
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BBC
2011
IMAX 3D
2008
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2006
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The Original UK Series
2011
2013
2007
2001
2016
2010
BBC / Narrated by David Attenborough
2009