James Cameron's Expedition - Bismarck

Rating:
Summary: James Cameron's Garbage is more like it....
Review: Since 1997, Cameron's films have sunk. Making a few so-called documentry films that are big on using new 3-D cameras but little informative content, producing a few new movies that are box office flops, and making a TV show that barely lasts one season. So much for the "king of the world", now between this stinker of a new film made for the Discovery Channel, which is high on neon lighting and little on substance (and the news that he wants to do a movie based on a Manga Comic Book), the guy has revealed himself as the no talent hack he really is.

Rating:
Summary: I Expected More
Review: Being a history buff and interested in sunken ships, I had missed the television showing of this film on the Discovery Channel due to other commitments. So I ordered the DVD and anxiously awaited its release to that format. Rewatching it recently, I have to say it is mildly disappointing. The underwater footage is excellent, but there isn't enough of it. The history of the ship and sinking is decent, but not extensive. The recreations are well made, but at times out of place. The interviews with survivors pretty moving and helpful, but don't add as much as pure narration could have. Some of the questions about the sinking and final fate of the ship are brought up ambiguously and, apparently resolved, yet not convincingly and in an anti-climatic fashion. Overall, I didn't get the amount of pure footage of the sunken ship that I expected. The bonus materials on the second disc are essentially worthless. The main complaint? More underwater footage was needed to make this worthwhile.

Rating:
Summary: Informative, good but not great
Review: I originally saw this documentary on The Discovery Channel and thought it was pretty interesting. The first disc consists of the program itself and starts/ends with a meeting of survivors of the battle from both sides.
Some of the German survivors actually went on Cameron's expedition to the wreck site, they gave advice on best robot camera entry points & so on. I thought the reenactment scenes looked very good (see disc 2 for a behind the scenes segment on that)as did some of the computer animated segments. Perhaps the most interesting point made was the contention that evidence indicated that the Bismarck's crew scuttled the ship, as they claimed, and most of the British Naval gunfire was ineffectual at best.
Disc 2 was actually more interesting to me with it's many segments of computer animation illustrating various parts of the battle & the sinking of the Bismarck. There's a section of multiangle video views of the ship, that's a joke because while there are some interestinng wreck pictures I could not get the claimed multi angle function to work

Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary achievement and marvelous special effects.
Review: I was able to watch this documentary when it was playing at Discovery Channel and I was impressed, at first time, i thought about the motives of James Cameron to do all that Titanic efforts again,going to the North Atlantic and gathering, financing all the submersible technology, experts and survivors, just o see how this legendary ship rests at two and a half miles deep. Then it was clear to me, that probably little Jimmy its cooking something that has the necessary power and history, to fill theaters all over again and beat once more the box office records. Mind my words when I say to you, that Cameron obsession for sink vessels is not over yet.
Bismarck is just a super documentary, two ours at the most pure James Cameron style. Probably this is the best war documentary I have ever seen, not just for the power of the history but for the extraordinary revelations behind this sinking.