You gotta love the mix of 3-D, large format and computer animationin ‘Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure’

You gotta love the mix of 3-D, large format and computer animationin ‘Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure’
By ROBERT W. BUTLER
The Kansas City Star

The star is a prehistoric dolichorhynchops, or Dolly.

A little science, a local angle and a whole lot of amazing 3-D computer animation are the main attractions of “Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure.”

The new large-format movie opens today on the Extreme Screen at Union Station and AMC’s Studio 30 in Olathe and is directed by Sean MacLeod Phillips and narrated by Liev Schreiber. It’s essentially the life story of a prehistoric sea reptile that lived in the ocean that covered Kansas 82 million years ago.

Our aquatic heroine is a dolichorhynchops (familiarly known as a “dolly”), a porpoise-sized creature that, while not particularly pretty, is a whole lot more cuddly than the voracious king-sized predators that make her watery world so dangerous.

Probably 95 percent of “Sea Monsters” is computer generated, and the f/x crew seems to have had a fine time finding ways to give the 3-D technology a workout.

Whether it’s a huge ugly monster rising slowly toward us through a fog-like school of tiny fish, or a gigantic squid doing a languid glide-by that leaves one of its trailing tentacles practically tickling our noses, the film delivers one spectacular moment after another.

Occasionally the movie returns to modern times, depicting the paleontological efforts of the Sternberg family in the chalk formations of western Kansas, or visiting modern construction sites in North Dakota, Texas, Israel and the Netherlands, where workers uncover fossils that tell stories of the far past.

One cool moment is the discovery of the skeleton of a giant sea predator with the smaller skeleton of its last meal still inside its rib cage. The original fossil can be viewed at KU’s Natural History Museum.

“Sea Monsters” resembles the popular cable TV series “Walking With Dinosaurs,” except that thanks to 3-D these long-gone creatures don’t just move across a flat screen but rather seem intent on curling up in our laps.

‘SEA MONSTERS’
Director: Sean MacLeod Phillips

Cast: Liev Schreiber (narrator)

No MPAA rating

Running time: 0:41