Journey Into Amazing Caves (IMAX)

This is a well-produced DVD and the imagery is very high resolution. Contrast and color are very good. Liam Neeson is an outstanding narrator. Most of the imagery of the movie is great. Very dramatic panoramas, especially the helicopter fly-throughs. You will enjoy watching the movie once.Unfortunately, the reason I don't rate it more than 3 stars is Amazing Caves suffers the common IMAX shortcoming that it has been produced as an all ages, all audiences film ... with a juvenile story, written at the 4th grade level. Too much of this brief 40 minute movie is wasted tending to the silly plot.One can sit through it once and enjoy it, certainly if you have kids with you, and at a real IMAX theater. Your kids might enjoy watching it more than once, especially younger daughters since the two main characters are women scientists/adventurers. But with kids being so smart and worldly these days, even 6th graders would tire of the simplistic story and narration.Why can't there be IMAX movies with appeal at a more intelligent level? Everest is a good example of an IMAX movie which does succeed in appealing to all audiences, but isn't written at a juvenile level.The great caving and nature imagery in Amazing Caves is very frequently interrupted so they can keep tending to their story line of two women on their caving exploration and adventure, always "getting in contact" via a hoaky-looking simulated web video multimedia laptop screen with a small class of kids somewhere. Of course it is simulated and plain silly. There is no live contact with anyone. Probably filmed months apart. Yet they keep returning to this .... story, at least 10 times during the movie. Very annoying. Maybe it will appeal to young kids ...Since IMAX movies are so short anyway, why don't they produce an alternate-cut of IMAX movies so that when 6 months later they release it on DVD, they can include the theatrical, all-ages juvenile story film, and a more intelligent, less pandering version with more interesting and meaningful narration, and cutting out the 30% of the film wasted on hoaky story devices and replacing it with more excellent, dramatic imagery. I know this means extra work, but it would likely result in more DVD sales. Maybe they could even show both versions (Kids, Grown-Ups) at the theaters.I have a large-screen projection system (162") with 10-channel surround. I have a large collection of IMAX movies. I am always looking for good, high-resolution nature, space and science movies. I just wish that more IMAX movies were actually worth watching multiple times, without having to suffer through juvenile stories, plot devices and elementary-school writing.If you want to see the movie for its good imagery, just rent somewhere or it or buy it on Amazon. You can always sell it again in the Amazon Marketplace, just like I did.

after a cave diving vacations in the Akumal area (where the underwater caves section of this film was made) i saw a magazine ad from this movie and to my surprise the movie was running in mexico city (where i live). a couple of days after my arrival i went to see this movie to the imax theater. i have to tell you all this because i was really thinking of it before actually seeing the movie. here i go:pros:1) there's no need to say that the photograpy was gorgeous and the huge screen leave you breathles at all times. after reading the credits (yes i do that), it was no surprise to find out that Wes Skilles was behind the underwater camera, he is one of the most experimented cave divers around and a incredible photographer, so thats one of the reasons that i'll probably end up buying this dvd.cons1) the film run time is to short (38 minutes)so if you're talking about underwater, dry and ice caves you will end up being short of time and leave the public wanting more. i ended up with the sensation of sex without any orgasm, frustated. if the producers idea was to show how "cool and macho" these beautiful places are there was no need to waste the talent and voice of Liam Nelson they just had had to send us a powerpont slide show and we would ended up with the same conclusion. but if the producers idea was to explain the importance of these places to the ecosistem and their beautiful fragility let me tell you that more imax film cans were necessary.2) but what i really hated about this film (i will talk about the underwater caves only, the ones i know) is the fact that just like a mtv or xtreme sports video if focus more on the "x factor" of the caves, "how cool they are", how "what's up dude attitude of the cavers" and that's all wrong!!! it is bad reputation for the caves and a stereotypes the people who dive them.maybe i was hoping too much from these film, maybe i was expecting something different from what mtv o xtreme sports would have done to cover this topic. that's my opinion. watch the film and have your own.

First of all, I am a caver. Before watching this IMAX movie in DC in an IMAX Theater I was afraid I would be disappointed because I realized this movie was to be made for the general public, was I wrong. All thru this movie I kept thinking to myself, I can't wait until this movie is out on DVD, well it is and I highly recommend it. True, it is written to address the general public, but as a caver of over 40 yrs I throughly enjoyed it and I have also bought the CD of the Soundtrack, it is a 5 star in my mind also and I am not a Moody Blues fan.The photography is super, I like the behind the scenes part as much as the movie, so you are getting two shows for the price of one. If something happened to my DVD of "Journey Into Amazing Caves", I would have to go out and buy another for my DVD library, I like it that much.I have seen a few IMAX movies in my time and this is one of my favorites, if not my favorite, but I am a caver and I like caves.

This is first and foremost a journey about two scientists looking for extremophiles. It just happens that where they are searching is in caves. The caves are spectacular, but since the focus is on the scientist you are left wanting more.I was also disappointed in that it really wasn't narrated by Liam Neeson. He introduced the movie, but the majority was the scientist explaining what they were doing. When I read that the movie was "narrated" I was expecting something more along the lines of how David Attinborough narrates Planet Earth.If you are looking for something more along the Planet Earth or the Scenic National Park Series, you may want to think twice about buying this DVD. This video was okay, but I don't know how many times I will re-watch this so I don't think I received full value for my money.

This 40 min REGION A/1 DVD has stunning photography of scenes inside caves but forget anything else. I agree with one of the other reviews, turn the sound off and play some music of your choice.

Fast delivery, product as expected.

Very interesting feature and great to hear the Moody Blues on the soundtrack

very pleased with blue ray and service

The main feature is much shorter than the 60 mins claimed by Amazon. The cave selection is bizarre, covering the Grand Canyon (not known for its caves), glacial crevasses (not caves at all) and Yucatan's flooded caves. Whilst the footage is all very spectacular, the soundtrack is unbelievably poor. Overloud sound effects and mangled Moody Blues songs are interspersed with dialogue than can only be described as idiotic. The dialogue generally takes the form of an audio diary to one of the presenter's junior school classes and is an insult to their intelligence.If you buy this DVD, turn the sound off and watch it to Laura Veirs' excellent song Spelunking (Americanese for caving and potholing).