4 out of 5 HelloNeimans

Movie Review Haiku:

All critics are right,
Seaworld is evil empire.
…Yet you all have gone.

Movie Review in Detail:

This was a very well made film, the music fit very well with the different themes of the events, the actors were appropriately emotional when needed, and the message is very clearly received by this critic and all others. As a documentary, I truly appreciated the film and like all of you, believe it will standout as one of the great documentary’s of our generation.

As for the social agenda of the film … I don’t understand why this is news to anyone. Every college kid with too much time on his hands social media political activist/expert has been posting to Facebook about how powerful this movie is, how horrible “the man” of Seaworld is, and how we should never have let this happen. During the movie, there are countless interviews by people who “knew what they were doing was wrong, but they did it anyways”. Only now, years later when accidents have happened and society has requested change in trainer behavior, do people finally step up and speak out against Orca captivity. Now you speak up??

And, yet, we have all been to one of these aquatic parks as kids … and loved it.

This movie is taking advantage of some horrific situations, and feels like little more than OSHA’s attempt to bankrupt Seaworld as payback to the court cases referenced in the film. The political agenda is strong, the desired results are clear, and the media reaction is exactly as expected. But these horrific events should never have happened in the first place, and this movie will propel just as many people to visit Seaworld as those that boycott it. After seeing this, you know kids will line up to buy tickets at a “chance to see a whale attack”. That is as sad a fact as it is true.

I did like the movie, and I appreciated the attempt to make a social change from it, but I don’t like how it was done. You will likely watch it, be touched, and speak out against me … but deep down you know I am a little right.