Blackfish review

So I caught up on the critically-acclaimed anti-SeaWorld documentary. Find my thoughts below.


Blackfish is a documentary relating to incidents wherein SeaWorld employees have been fatally injured or killed by the captive killer whales. It also goes over the poor conditions that the whales endure. This is all in an attempt to convince the audience of its point, that keeping animals in captivity is ultimately bad for the animals and dangerous.

This is a powerful movie. It succeeds as a persuasive documentary. I know I don't ever want to visit SeaWorld again.  It has a strong control over its tone-whether the talking heads are talking about how much they loved working with the animals or how horrified they were with the fatalities and the poor conditions the whales are kept in, it all works to reinforce the movie's point.

The movie is also intense, though that's to be expected from a film trying to expose something horrible. It aggressively points out all the results of keeping these wild animals captive, and what it shows is all the more horrifying for it. Because of that, it becomes sort of mesmerizing. What it's showing you is horrible, but you can't look away. The result is a powerful documentary, and one of the best movies of the year.