HUBBLE (Toni Myers). 44 minutes. Opens Friday (March 19). At the Science Centre Omnimax, see Indie & Rep Film. Rating: NNN
Hubble, the latest IMAX space documentary, takes us into orbit with the crew of the shuttle Atlantis as they attempt a risky upgrade of the vaunted space telescope.
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Even if you know the outcome of the 2009 mission, there’s enough bustle and activity in Toni Myers’s direction to keep you engaged – maybe too much, actually.
I’ve seen a lot of IMAX docs, and Hubble is the first one that feels overstuffed, juggling footage from three Hubble missions between 1990 and 2009, a history of the device and some animated fly-throughs of its spectacularly detailed imagery.
The large-format presentation of Hubble’s data – which sends the audience whizzing through the Orion Nebula and the distant Virgo Cluster – is worth the price of admission all on its own, even in 2-D. But the constant shifting between “plot lines” – and Leonardo DiCaprio’s overstressed narration – makes for a somewhat wearying journey.
