More fun than Anatomy 101 but more enlightening than, say, "Osmosis Jones", "The Human Body" takes a lively if somewhat haphazard large-format look at life from the inside.
Inspired by the similarly offbeat eight-hour TV series "Intimate Universe: The Human Body," produced for TLC and the BBC, the Imax-sized version from nWave Pictures Distribution, opening Sunday at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, has its share of eye-opening sequences utilizing the latest in filmmaking and medical imaging technology.
With only 40-odd minutes at their disposal, director Peter Georgi and writer Richard Dale, who collaborated on the original series, construct a dawn-to-dusk day in the life of a human body, with the vessels in question provided by a London-based American and British extended family, including the pregnant Heather Pike and her husband, Buster.
By incorporating such elements as heat-sensitive thermal imaging, scanning electron microscopy and computer-generated X-rays and skeletal animation, the film presents the simplest of activities in a new, revealing light.
Of course, such graphic presentations can serve up something of a mixed bag.
On the fascinating side, there's footage of hair-like cells in the inner ear that seemingly dance when music is played, responding to stimuli much like those bopping plastic flowers and Coke cans that were popular a decade ago.
On the other hand, one could probably live the rest of their life without ever again having to see extreme close-ups of zits being popped across a seven-story canvas, and some might find a sequence following the consumption of a ripe red tomato as it makes its way through the digestive system a little hard to stomach.
Ironically, some of the film's most intriguing aspects require very little in the way of special effects assistance, like a fascinating sequence showing wide-eyed newborn babies fearlessly holding their breath underwater.
But in an effort to wedge as much stuff as possible into the compact running time, "Body" scratches a million surfaces as it dashes all over the place navigating data-packed factoids.
A straightforward, more systematic approach would have been preferred, but as matters physiological go, we'll take high-definition endoscopic thermal imaging over stuffy old textbooks any day of the week.
THE HUMAN BODY
nWave Pictures Distribution
TLC and BBC Worldwide
Discovery Pictures/BBC
in association with the Science Museum, London
and the Maryland Science Center
Director: Peter Georgi
Screenwriter: Richard Dale
Producers: Peter Georgi, Richard Dale
Executive producer: Jana Bennett
Director of photography: Reed Smoot
Director of specialist photography: David Barlow
Production designer: Tim Goodchild
Editor: Peter Parnham
Music: Anne Dudley
Color/stereo
Narrator: Robert Winston
Running time -- 43 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Inspired by the similarly offbeat eight-hour TV series "Intimate Universe: The Human Body," produced for TLC and the BBC, the Imax-sized version from nWave Pictures Distribution, opening Sunday at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, has its share of eye-opening sequences utilizing the latest in filmmaking and medical imaging technology.
With only 40-odd minutes at their disposal, director Peter Georgi and writer Richard Dale, who collaborated on the original series, construct a dawn-to-dusk day in the life of a human body, with the vessels in question provided by a London-based American and British extended family, including the pregnant Heather Pike and her husband, Buster.
By incorporating such elements as heat-sensitive thermal imaging, scanning electron microscopy and computer-generated X-rays and skeletal animation, the film presents the simplest of activities in a new, revealing light.
Of course, such graphic presentations can serve up something of a mixed bag.
On the fascinating side, there's footage of hair-like cells in the inner ear that seemingly dance when music is played, responding to stimuli much like those bopping plastic flowers and Coke cans that were popular a decade ago.
On the other hand, one could probably live the rest of their life without ever again having to see extreme close-ups of zits being popped across a seven-story canvas, and some might find a sequence following the consumption of a ripe red tomato as it makes its way through the digestive system a little hard to stomach.
Ironically, some of the film's most intriguing aspects require very little in the way of special effects assistance, like a fascinating sequence showing wide-eyed newborn babies fearlessly holding their breath underwater.
But in an effort to wedge as much stuff as possible into the compact running time, "Body" scratches a million surfaces as it dashes all over the place navigating data-packed factoids.
A straightforward, more systematic approach would have been preferred, but as matters physiological go, we'll take high-definition endoscopic thermal imaging over stuffy old textbooks any day of the week.
THE HUMAN BODY
nWave Pictures Distribution
TLC and BBC Worldwide
Discovery Pictures/BBC
in association with the Science Museum, London
and the Maryland Science Center
Director: Peter Georgi
Screenwriter: Richard Dale
Producers: Peter Georgi, Richard Dale
Executive producer: Jana Bennett
Director of photography: Reed Smoot
Director of specialist photography: David Barlow
Production designer: Tim Goodchild
Editor: Peter Parnham
Music: Anne Dudley
Color/stereo
Narrator: Robert Winston
Running time -- 43 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 10/30/2001
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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