George Palathingal, The Sydney Morning Herald:
“On the surface, the Japanese town of Taiji seems to love whales and dolphins. Murals around the place say as much and there’s even a celebrated whale museum.
However, as a horror-movie preview might put it, this town harbours a sinister secret.
The horror analogy proves apt as this powerful documentary from Louie Psihoyos, the co-founder of conservation organisation the Oceanic Preservation Society, unfolds… The ingenious plan to get cameras and sound-recording equipment into one of the coves gives the film a pulsating, thriller-like central plot – a la Man On Wire – but that’s one facet of this remarkable documentary.
It is put together so smartly you can almost feel the urgency – from the patient set-up, which lays on the information and statistics without getting boring or too preachy, to the horrific finale.
Japan’s approach to whaling on a cultural and political level is explored, as is the question of who would eat dolphin meat in the first place. And, of course, there is lots of gorgeous footage of these impossibly graceful creatures in the wild.
The human heart of the documentary beats in Ric O’Barry. He caught and trained the dolphins that were used in the Flipper TV show of the 1960s and, as someone who has spent much of his life since trying to destroy the very industry he helped build, you feel his pain.
Still, that pales in comparison with the fate of the dolphins. Whether we witness it or not, this remains a film that has to be seen to be believed.”
3 1/2 stars

Read the full review… http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/film/film-reviews/the-cove/2009/08/19/1250362113215.html

Margaret Pomerantz, At The Movies:
“In the hands of Psihoyos [The Cove] becomes like the documenting of an undercover military operation as the carefully assembled team of expert divers, camouflage experts from Industrial Light and Magic, camera people and the ubiquitous O’Barry converge on Taiji despite the hostility of the locals to secretly film the killing.
The result is quite horrific. No-one could be unmoved.”
3 1/2 stars

David Stratton, At The Movies:
4 stars

Read their full assessment… http://www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/txt/s2642591.htm

Evan Williams, The Australian:
“I find it difficult to write about The Cove with equanimity.
By any measure, this is a horror film: graphic, shocking, uncompromising. The horrors, moreover, are real…an unforgettable documentary account of how O’Barry and a team of activists and divers penetrated the cove at night and filmed the slaughter with hidden cameras and submarine recording devices.
The last 10 minutes of The Cove are not for sensitive viewers. And again (if you’ll pardon me) I thought of Shakespeare: Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
I never imagined, when I was doing Macbeth at school, that those words might one day have a literal meaning.”
3 1/2 stars

Read the full review… http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25956721-15803,00.html

Andrew L. Urban, Urban Cinefile:

“Horror film, spy thriller, disaster movie, corruption expose … and more, The Cove is a gripping and devastating indictment of Japan’s barbaric and secretive dolphin harvesting program…
The Cove is a film that will make a difference – it’s impossible not to respond to its message, which is to express outrage and demand the slaughter be stopped. Japan has lost face in a major and profound way; it can only regain it by taking action and closing down the killing cove. But, it argues, it is killing whales – including dolphins – as a sort of pest control, because the whales are eating too much fish and depleting the world’s supply. And Japan expects the world to treat that claim seriously. Fish supplies are in danger, sure, but not from whales but man, notably Japanese man, the world’s biggest consumer of seafood.”

Louise Keller, Urban Cinefile:

“Mesmerising cinema is the result of Louie Psihoyos’s must-see documentary about dolphins and their slaughter. There is nothing simplistic about this story, nor the range of emotions we experience as our journey skids from fascination to devastation… As tense as any horror film.”

Read the full article… http://www.urbancinefile.com.au/home/view.asp?a=16015&s=Reviews

Scott Weinberg, Cinematical:

“Wow. Just wow. This is easily one of the most powerful, heartfelt, and (yes, I’ll say it) important ‘nature’ documentaries I’ve ever seen. Here’s a brutally honest and effortlessly fascinating film about one specific cove in Taiji, Japan, in which approximately 23,000 dolphins are killed every year. Yes, you read that right: 23,000. Dolphins. Annually.”
“Strong praise is due to director Psihoyos for remembering that, even though he has a stunning, shocking, tragic story to tell — an audience still needs a human touch. And that touch is provided by Mr. O’Barry, who is a hero in every sense of the word. The former dolphin trainer helped to bring Flipper into the global consciousness, and as such he feels beholden to the creatures, and he’ll stop at nothing to protect them from the brutal fishermen. The film itself is an act of heroism, as it takes us knee-deep into some rather dangerous activities behind enemy lines — and the result is some footage that you must see to believe. It’s not for the squeamish, but it’s something you really should see. Just so you’ll get a little outraged.”

Read the full article… http://www.cinematical.com/2009/01/24/sundance-review-the-cove/

Justin Chang, Variety:

“Eco-activist documentaries don’t get much more compelling than The Cove, an impassioned piece of advocacy filmmaking that follows “Flipper” trainer-turned-marine crusader Richard O’Barry in his efforts to end dolphin slaughter in Taiji, Japan. Casting a very wide net, this powerful polemic is simultaneously a love letter to a beloved species, an eye-opening primer on worldwide dolphin captivity, a playful paranoid thriller and a work of deep-seated (if sometimes hot-headed) moral outrage. The devastating final images demand to be seen on the big screen…”

Read the full article… http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=festivals&jump=review&id=2471&reviewid=VE1117939389&cs=1

Peter Howell, The Toronto Star:

“The Cove emphatically gets the word out, also showing how duplicitous the Japanese government has been about living up to its commitments as a member of the International Whaling Commission, which is supposed to conserve marine life rather than exploit it. The Cove is not your average eco-doc. It’s guerrilla filmmaking at its best.”
Read the full review… http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/629572

Justin Lowe, The Hollywood Review:

“A suspenseful, compelling indictment of Japan’s deadly dolphin-exploitation industry… Louie Psihoyos’ Audience Award winner The Cove is much more than a social-issue doc, combining investigative reporting, educational filmmaking and eco-thriller elements that inspired repeat standing ovations at Sundance screenings.”

Read the full article… http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film-reviews/film-review-the-cove-1003934519.story

Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine:

“The film staggeringly exposes the high-to-low complicity of many hands in the international captivity trade, though mostly it stands as a testament to one man’s activist spirit and a reminder of how all social progress comes from the passion of the individual.”

Read the full article… http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/film_review.asp?ID=4177

Gini Kopecky-Wallace, Hollywood Elsewhere:

“You’d have to be made of stone not to be horrified by the subject matter and humbled by, good lord, what it took to get the film made. But you hear “killing dolphins” and you gird yourself. You don’t expect a documentary that also works as a feature film, with heroes, bad guys, action, suspense, horror, heartbreak, beauty. You don’t expect to be swept up.
The material for it was there. Dangerous mission, colorful characters, great cast — including beautiful and brave human mermaid Mandy-Rae Cruickshank, and former Flipper dolphin trainer-turned-dolphin liberationist Ric O’Barry with his wonderfully weathered face. But the filmmakers worked the material well too — building suspense, sustaining the action, never straying too far from the main story, jazzing up visual effects with thermal-camera footage, and going easy but not too easy on the carnage.”

Read the full article… http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/06/dolphin_lady_on.php

Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere:

“I’m now officially and emotionally among the ranks of the persuaded and the blown-away. It’s easily one of the best films I’ve seen this year, and without question my choice for the best documentary of 2009 so far. It’s this year’s Man on Wire — almost certain to keep playing and gathering steam all through the year and into Oscar season.
You don’t come out of The Cove simply saying “really good movie!” (although you do). You come out The Cove wanting to fly the next day to Taiji, Japan, in order to kick some Japanese dolphin-slaughtering ass. You come out furious and moved and converted and dug in.
No one should get the idea that The Cove is primarily a classroom-lecture piece and an eco-activist movie, although it is obviously those things in a political undertow sense. Because it’s first and foremost a very well-made, thoroughly watchable murder-mystery — a gripping and entertaining sit by any standard. (Unless you happen to be, you know, an idiot.) That’s right — murder. As in seawater turning pink and then blood red.”

Read the full article… http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/07/total_cove_guy.php