Movie: Great Bear Rainforest 3D

Great Bear Rainforest 3D  showcases all that’s spectacular about watching an IMAX 4K Laser Digital movie.

Huge eagles seem to be flying straight at the audience, and it’s easy to feel you’re in the water with playful sea lions.

Then there are the bears. As the name suggests, this 45 minute Canadian documentary highlights the bears found in the last intact temperate rainforest in the world, where mountains, the ocean, rivers and forests meet.

At the same time director Ian McAllister and his crew, who spent three years filming within the Great Bear Rainforest, have also captured wonderful footage of other animal species including wolves, sea otters, humpback whales and thousands of fish.

A white Spirit Bear named Mox is, without doubt, the star of the documentary.  Watching her as she wakes from hibernation, we follow her movements through the forest. Narrator Ryan Reynolds tells how she is part of a rare sub-species known as “spirit bears”, all-white bears “neither albino, nor polar”.

There are fewer than 200 alive today, so their protection is of utmost importance — especially to the First Nations people who’ve passed down the tradition of watching over them from generation to generation. During the documentary we meet some of these people and learn of their work and culture.

Through Mox’s interaction with black bears and grizzlies, who also call the forest home, we discover the pecking order amongst bears.

We also learn about the importance of spawning salmon to the bear population. Watching the bears trying to catch the salmon is one of the movie’s many highlights.

Indeed just about every scene is a wildlife lover’s delight – including animal outtakes at the end of the documentary.

The Great Bear Rainforest 3D is now showing at Melbourne’s IMAX theatre Visit the IMAX website for more information and tickets.

*Photo credit: Ian McAllister PacificWild.