Endangered reefs, murky storytelling

You won’t find Nemo among the multitude of sea creatures in the Imax documentary “Coral Reef Adventure,” but you will get wondrous underwater views tinged with a darker message.

The film marks veteran director Greg MacGillivray’s third dip into the cinematic deep end following the Academy Award-nominated documentaries “The Living Sea” and “Dolphins.” With more than $20 million in domestic box office since it opened regionally last February, “Coral” is the highest-grossing new documentary released in 2003.

So why do coral reefs rate the Imax treatment? Covering less than 1% of the ocean floor, coral reefs are home to 25% of marine life; they are the underwater equivalent of tropical rainforests. And like the rainforests they are in danger. In the last four years, 10% of the Earth’s coral reefs have died, another quarter are ailing; unchecked, the destruction could be complete within 40 years.

Underwater cinematographers and deep-sea divers Howard and Michele Hall serve as audience surrogates in the film, navigating from Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to Fiji and Tahiti looking for answers to the problems plaguing the reefs.

Part amusement park ride, part public service announcement, “Coral Reef Adventure” is most effective when doing what Imax movies do best: transporting audiences to unusual places they might not otherwise visit. The film has plenty of transcendent vistas, particularly in the Halls’ visit to the Great Barrier Reef, where an undersea society plays out its daily rituals.

Eye-popping bouquets of coral provide an amazing home to all manner of aquatic life ranging from fish whose bright colors a peacock would envy to plug-ugly behemoths that look as if they oozed out of prehistoric muck. The symbiotic relationships of the reef’s residents function with the precision of a five-star hotel.

That splendor leaves us ill-prepared for the devastation found in Fiji. There, a dying reef is an eerie presence, a starkly monochromatic contrast to a healthy organism. Darkness descends, in the form of a blizzard of silt caused by inland logging and agricultural practices, blotting out the necessities of survival. Rising sea temperatures brought on by global warming and overfishing are also cited as threats.

MacGillivray wisely keeps the film from feeling claustrophobic, venturing topside to provide the requisite Imax roller-coaster moments: a hang-gliding sequence in the Eastern Sierras that introduces Howard Hall, and a stunning flight aboard an ultralight plane, which threads the shard-like peaks of Rangiroa to observe the atoll’s reefs from the sky.

The film is ostensibly structured as a mystery with the intrepid Halls serving as a nautical Nick and Nora, but the narrative lumbers a bit in its earnestness. In chronicling the 10-month journey across the South Pacific, the timeline becomes as murky as some of the waters the film visits, and too many faces clutter this 46-minute film.

Like the reefs themselves -- which seem to flourish in direct proportion to their distance from human civilization -- the movie is at its best when it spends less time with people and focuses on the natural wonders.

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‘Coral Reef Adventure’

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MPAA rating: Unrated

Times guidelines: Suitable for all ages

Liam Neeson...Narrator

Produced by MacGillivray Freeman Films, in association with the National Wildlife Federation; Lowell, Blake and Associates Inc.; Museum of Science, Boston; and the Museum Film Network, released by MacGillivray Freeman Films Educational Foundation. Producer-director Greg MacGillivray. Producer Alec Lorimore. Executive producers Christopher N. Palmer, Chat Reynders. Screenplay by Osha Gray Davidson, Stephen Judson. Cinematographers (topside) Greg MacGillivray, Brad Ohlund. Cinematographer (underwater) Howard Hall. Editor Stephen Judson. Music Steve Wood. Songs by Crosby, Stills & Nash. Running time: 46 minutes.

Exclusively at the California Science Center Imax Theater, 700 State Drive, L.A. (213) 744-7400.