REVIEW
The Last Reef: Cities Beneath the Sea
Where: Imax Victoria
When: Opens Friday, 11 a.m., 2, 4 and 7 p.m.
Rating: 4
"If a bikini doesn't get you into the water, maybe an aqualung will do the job," intones a retro narrator in newsreel footage that recalls the birth of the bikini, with a row of scantily clad beauties punctuated by a shot of a scuba diver.
This black-and-white teaser cuts to images of the the Marshall Islands' Bikini Atoll, where the American military tested nuclear weapons after the Second World War, culminating in nuclear blasts that destroyed the delicate undersea ecosystem.
After this simple but effective prelude to The Last Reef: Cities Beneath the Sea, writer-directors Luke Creswell and Steve McNi-cholas submerge us in a breathtaking, much more colourful portrait of the planet's endangered undersea wonderlands.
Filmed at locations including Palau, French Polynesia, Mexico and the Bahamas, The Last Reef is gorgeous to behold and timely, and not just because it's a season when many of us dream of escaping to such sun-baked paradises.
As far as jaw-dropping imagery goes, The Last Reef is hard to beat as it effectively parallels behaviour in these heavily populated "cities beneath the sea" with bustling urban centres - notably New York, captured with dazzling time-lapse photography.
While stunning footage of coral reefs teeming with species such as crocodile fish, lemon sharks, manta rays and caterpil-
lar-like nudibranchs is inventively juxtaposed with urban action, the film also conveys how interconnected both worlds are.
Standouts include shots of tropical fish feasting on plankton intercut with city dwellers stuffing their faces at food outlets.
Impressively narrated by Jamie Lee, the film reminds us that, as resilient as they are, these other-worldly havens for a remarkable diversity of ocean inhabitants are in danger of extinction if we don't reduce our toxic carbon emissions.
If the pollution, ocean acidification and over-fishing continues at the current rate, these exotic ecosystems could become watery graves. This potential outcome is hauntingly implied in beautiful yet eerie shots of statues by U.K. sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor installed undersea near Cancun and Belize as potential foundations for new undersea worlds.
Without becoming preachy, The Last Reef interjects sobering factoids - that fragile ancient coral reefs are vanishing at five times the rate of rainforests, for instance - amid its truly spectacular and mesmerizing shots of coral dwellers.
What differentiates The Last Reef, even this non-3D version, is D.J. Roller's brilliantly rendered underwater macro footage of iridescent corals and sea creatures that could be aliens in sci-fi movies. Highlights include its up-close-and-personal clouds of jellyfish, undulating wafer-thin flatworms, stingrays, giant clams and that amazing, eye-popping nudibranch.
The film's hypnotic score composed by Cresswell and McNi-cholas at times recalls a Phillip Glass score in overdrive. It brilliantly heightens the drama, driving home the message that changes in human behaviour can alter this undersea fate.
