Robb Livingood

Sorry, I DO NOT see how this movie got a 93% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Makes me lose faith in the RT rating system. Spoilers: A rich white dude makes a movie about himself. He has troubling bounding with his son and loses interest in his work, so instead he goes SCUBA diving in the same place every day and films himself doing it (later interviews himself). He finds an octopus (who he never names), and scares her from her den. He later stalks her down, but by some miracle she actually decides to befriend him. That friendship proves rather useless as, time and time again, he watches her be stalked, attacked, and mauled by a 30 lb shark that he could have easily scared away if he weren’t afraid of it. He says he didn’t want to “interfere with nature” (like he doesn’t interfere with nature basically every living moment as a human being—and would that be an excuse if an animal was to threatening your dog?). The filmmaker comes close to self-awareness when he wonders if he should feel guilty. Finally, the third shark attack claims her life. Meanwhile, the filmmaker’s son has learned that he will never see his father unless he starts diving with him. So, thanks to the actions of the son, their relationship is saved. The film is set to nice music and great shots of the octopus. So I guess by pure cinematography alone, lots of viewers were sufficiently convinced this was a nice story. To me, if was just sorta about this guy’s escapism, and how people love cuddling animals but won’t act selflessly for the animal’s interests. To them, the value of animals is just what they will do for us. The filmmaker wants to believe he is Steve Irwin, but the ocean should have taken this millionaire instead of Steve. Three stars at best.