Movie Review
Storyline
The story is relatively simple, but similar to David Attenborough's One Kingdom of the Seven Worlds, where the focus is on a single creature and shows their trials and tribulations throughout life. Instead of hounds or a group of chimpanzees, our attention falls to the bottom of the ocean.
Our journey takes place deep in the heart of the Great Barrier Reef, with a little pufferfish named Puff. With neat camera work, this documentary then follows this little fish as he navigates the dangerous fish-fish world of his blue world.
Whether it's traveling across sand flats or evading predators, each segment of Puff has a special focus. Puff has a lot of educational information around travel; facts about our ocean that are as informative as they are entertaining.
Humor
It would be easy to go into this and make the humor seem a little too silly. But it's the humor that families with kids will likely benefit the most from.
It's not just for kids and there are some really engaging segments that everyone will enjoy. Just like the absolute gut punch of seeing bleached coral reefs in one of the film's stunningly painful segments, it's absolutely fascinating to learn more about the microscopic creatures that inhabit the reefs.
At just one hour long, the finale seems to cut Puff's journey short. It would have been nice to see the cycle come to a satisfying end with Puff finding a mate and having a child, but it's a minor annoyance in what is a really engaging hour.
The camera work is also good, although some of the zoom shots are a bit overdone at times. It's neat the first few times, but it's a recurring motif that eventually becomes overwhelming.
Overall
Despite these gripes, Puff: Wonders of the Reef is an entertaining and compelling nature documentary. It's informative and educational, and at just under an hour, it's the perfect doctor to watch with the kids. Whether or not this will "blow up" on Netflix remains to be seen, but it's definitely worth a watch nonetheless!
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