I almost want to rate this movie lower, but I have to credit where credit is due: This is a very interesting project that a person decided to work on and hats off to him and everyone else who worked on it. I have a lot of respect for the man and those who decided to spend time filming an octopus for such a lengthy amount of time.
That being said, the narration is cringey and I almost walked out on multiple occasions within the first 10 minutes. My main issue with the documentary is that it is trying to build a narrative arc out of our "protagonist's" journey and his interaction with this octopus which starts to feel very forced and a bit out of nowhere in certain places. For instance, the end of the documentary weirdly starts focusing on his son, his expectations for his son, and his pride in his son.
Cute. I'm glad you are bonding. However, it comes out of nowhere and doesn't feel natural. It's like the creators of this documentary really wanted to make an emotional human drama at the same time as developing a documentary on the intelligence of an octopus and randomly decide to squeeze in human "soul searching" monologuing to make the documentary feel deep and profound.
However, it mostly comes across as (and I hate using this word) pretentious. I love cephalopods, I love octopuses, I love the ocean, but my goodness I cannot stand the monologuing in this film.
If you want to see great octopus footage and see someone else appreciate their great intelligence then I would recommend skipping the first couple of minutes.
That being said, the narration is cringey and I almost walked out on multiple occasions within the first 10 minutes. My main issue with the documentary is that it is trying to build a narrative arc out of our "protagonist's" journey and his interaction with this octopus which starts to feel very forced and a bit out of nowhere in certain places. For instance, the end of the documentary weirdly starts focusing on his son, his expectations for his son, and his pride in his son.
Cute. I'm glad you are bonding. However, it comes out of nowhere and doesn't feel natural. It's like the creators of this documentary really wanted to make an emotional human drama at the same time as developing a documentary on the intelligence of an octopus and randomly decide to squeeze in human "soul searching" monologuing to make the documentary feel deep and profound.
However, it mostly comes across as (and I hate using this word) pretentious. I love cephalopods, I love octopuses, I love the ocean, but my goodness I cannot stand the monologuing in this film.
If you want to see great octopus footage and see someone else appreciate their great intelligence then I would recommend skipping the first couple of minutes.