Join the sweeping spectacle of hundreds of migrating zebras in East Africa. Witness the mysterious migration of more than 120 million red crabs on tiny Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. Encounter the affectionate curiosity of majestic gray whales in the beautiful lagoons of Mexicos’s Baja California. Enter a golden blizzard as tens of millions of monarch butterflies fill the sky in the hidden highlands of Mexico. Then take flight alongside migratory birds navigating by sun, stars and instinct. Finally, travel back in time among tribes of Africa to explore the roots of human migration.
"One of the fine things about IMAX films is that they're not only great eye candy, but easily digestible science.
We get both of those qualities in "Amazing Journeys," the new offering at Milwaukee's Humphrey IMAX Dome Theater.
The film explains one simple lesson of nature: Movement is life. So the picture follows migratory animals from around the world, glimpsing their uncanny navigational secrets.
What saves this concept from fossilizing into a '50s "True Life Adventure" is the amazing cinematography delivered by director George Casey, a four-time Academy Award nominee who has been working with large-format films for 20 years.
What better technology than IMAX to show us gray whales eyeball-to-eyeball with humans? The wise giants are projected almost life size on the screen, and we get to ride along as they "spy hop" out of the water to get their bearings migrating from the lagoons of Baja to the Arctic seas.
Another creature on the move is far smaller but just as impressive. "Amazing Journeys" shows a golden blizzard of millions of monarch butterflies filling the skies of highland Mexico. Each individual butterfly weighs less than a paper clip; hanging together, they can bring down tree limbs. And they provoke delighted gasps from the crowd.
For comic relief, there's the seldom-seen migration of 120 million red crabs scuttling toward the sea on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. These creatures are so single-minded in their quest that they march right through human settlements, invading classrooms and even bedrooms. Kids, there really are monsters under your bed.
All these journeys are explained using simple but effective on-screen graphics.
Only when "Amazing Journeys" visits Africa does it fall into tired episodes of predator vs. prey that have been the gist of nature movies for decades. Baby zebras attacked by hyenas may be the stuff of real life, but it is not the stuff of good, original cinema.
But most of what "Amazing Journeys" offers is. Stunning beauty, natural mysteries and non-painful science add up to good entertainment."
- Jackie Loohauis
Leasing information
For more information on this film, please contact Charlotte Lazenberry at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
by phone at (713) 639-4725,
by fax at (713) 523-4125,
by email at clazenberry@hmns.org,
or by mail at:
HMNS Film Distribution,
One Hermann Circle Drive,
Houston, Texas, 77030.
# Of Leases: 68
Gross Box Office: $20,361,626
Formats Available: 15/70; 8/70
Language Version Available: Arabic, English, French, German, Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish (Catalan)
For more information on any of these films or to request a complimentary Viewing Copy (DVD format) and Press Kit please contact Charlotte Brohi, VP, IMAX Operations & Production at cbrohi@hmns.org or by phone at 713-639-4725
Film Facts
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- Film Highlight:
- 1999
- 39 minutes
- George Casey
- Paul Novros
- Mose Richards
- Cn
- Amazing Journeys is produced by Graphic Films Corporation for Migration Partners, Ltd in collaboration with the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
- 48 miles of 70mm negative were exposed in the making of Amazing Journeys that captured the great migrations of five remarkable species to the ends of the earth.
- The longest and greatest of any insect migration is that of the monarch butterfly. This film explores the miracle of navigation as something the size of a leaf, weighing no more than a paperclip, flies across an entire continent to a place it has never been.
"Amazing Journeys (Not rated, probably PG) (40 min.) -- The sight of millions of monarch butterflies fluttering and clinging to trees is worth the price of admission to George Casey's IMAX documentary. It's honestly one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen on screen, and the immense dimensions of the format, coupled with the curvature of the IMAX Dome Theater at the Museum of Science and Industry, make it unforgettable.
Those gorgeous insects are one species Casey displays in the course of their annual migration for survival. Monarch butterflies travel 2,500 miles through North America to Mexican forests to find what they need. The trip to MOSI is much shorter and worthwhile for moviegoers.
Audiences also fly alongside Canada geese, swim with gray whales and dodge predators on African plains with zebras. Each insect or mammal's motivation for their respective treks is explained with economy, keeping the pace livelier than a lecture. Comic relief is provided by scenes of thousands of red crabs scrambling over every inch of Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, moving to the shore for spawning.
In the final segment humans take their place alongside the world's migrators. Casey traces the path of Masai tribes in East Africa, sleeping on animal hides in a daily re-enactment of primitive history. The balance between nature and humans who respect it is clear. Casey's film is an amiable ecology lesson, perhaps a bit skimpy on the details for a museum piece, but full of eye-catching images.
Opens Friday at the Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa. Amazing Journeys will be shown in rotation with other IMAX films through Dec. 31. Then the IMAX Dome Theater will present a different sort of marvel: a remastered version of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Grade for Amazing Journeys: A-"
- Steve Persall