Pascal Vuong has spent five years on "SeaRex: Journey to a Prehistoric World," and believe me, it was worth the time. It's one of the best films to have spread around the huge screen of the Omnimax theater at the St. Louis Science Center, where it opened on Friday. It's a tale of undersea creatures, some real, some fanciful, who were among the first living things to inhabit a mostly water-covered planet some 600 million years ago.
Using both live imagery and some brilliant animation, Vuong and his crew discuss the march of evolution from the Cambrian period, when fish began to have hard body parts, to the Triassic (about 250 million years in the past), which introduced the Age of the Dinosaurs. That period lasted some 185 million years until the Cenozoic period, the Age of Mammals, in which we now are living.
Actors Richard Rider, as a geologist, and Chloe Hollings, as a student, serve as narrators and explainers as we journey more than 600 million years in less than an hour.
Featured performers are the dinosaurs, of course, and the artists and animators have done spectacular work in re-creating the 75-foot-long Shonisaurus, the fierce Prognathodon, the long-necked Elasmosaurus and the ferocious Liopleurodon, among others. A half-dozen real scientists, portrayed by actors, speak about the animals, their habits and their lifestyles.
It's a fascinating film, with some of the best stories about evolution, and it's excellent entertainment while serving as real education at the same time.
SeaRex: Journey to a Prehistoric World, is playing at the Omnimax theater at the St. Louis Science Center
—Joe