The Greatest Places (1998)
A journey to seven of the most geographically dynamic locations on earth. The film features spectacular land forms, diverse wildlife and the people and cultures indigenous to these places. Distinct geographic places include the great island of Madagascar, home to unique limestone pinnacles and the playful lemur; and the greatest desert—the Namib—home of the largest sand dunes in the world that tower majestically over its western border, the Atlantic Ocean. Other locations featured are the great icecap of Greenland, Iguazu Falls in Brazil, the Okavango Delta in Botswana, the Chang Tang Plateau in Tibet, and the Amazon River in South America.
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Let's be realistic.
Absolutely the worst movie.
This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
Greatest Places has a syrupy sweet, cloying narrative. (On several occasions I covered my ears in order to endure it.) I give this movie a 2. If Avery Brooks only could have had laryngitis that day, this movie could have earned a 5 instead (without *any* narrative at all). The low grade of the movie isn't Brooks' fault per se, although he does a superlative job of drawing out each sappy line, with his skilled melodic baritone. Afterwards, watching the credits, I cursed the writer.Moving on to the cinematography: Some of the images were, as your would expect, breathtaking. I was especially enamored of Madagascar and Namib. But the enormous power of IMAX imagery was blown to bits with choppy editing and constant (dozens) of abrupt cuts (every 15 to 20 seconds) from panoramic landscapes to adorably cute animals or close-up flora & fauna.Uggghh! Very frustrating! Every time the imagery sweeps over you with power and grandeur, it's crudely jerked away and replaced with something to make a 3rd grader go "awww ... isn't that cute". The frequent changes in visual scale -- from viewing 15,000 feet of landscape to face-shots of cute animals -- are enough to give you vertigo, or at least a headache.The movie had a valid concept. But together with a horrible writer, an outstanding saccharine execution of a juvenile narrative, and "gotta get a little of every shot in here" editing, the entire movie was lost. I wouldn't watch it again if you paid me. (But I would gladly order some 16 x 20 color prints from the movie's imagery.) What a shame.
The seven "greatest places" creates an interesting concept. However, the number makes it impossible for such a brief film to do justice to any of these great places. Imaxes should dwell on one location, to really maximize its beauty -- as in "Everest" or "Africa: the Serengeti" or "Niagara." Skip it - it loses the thrilling capabilities of the Imax format.