Tonight was the Vancouver pre-screening of IMAX’s latest marvel, Sea Monsters 3D A Prehistoric Adventure. Along with a theater full of hand-picked celebrities like myself (!), ok, let’s say tourism industry slaves instead, I sat in front of the 5 storey-high screen and wondered if I was going to be impressed. It takes a lot to impress me when it comes to the underwater realm and computer animation.

I was. The National Geographic production was stunningly combining real ocean footage and amazing animation into a really immersive experience. Of course, this is a show meant to entertain and dazzle its audience more than it will educate. The content was however fascinating and made me ponder how much we are able to reconstruct of the reality of millions of years ago simply by studying fossils and geology.

Worth watching even if only for the cuteness of the baby dolichorhynchops - aka Dolly - that we follow on her journey through the oceans and the fantastic computer-generated schools of fish that had me wondering if they were real.