Octonauts and The Ring of Fire Review
By: Calista Lee
Produced by Silvergate Media and originally written by Vicki Wong and Michael C. Murphy, The Octonauts is a British children’s television series following a diverse group of animals who live inside an undersea base called the Octopod. Led by polar bear Captain Barnacles, the crew conducts research on and takes care of different marine life, teaching kids at home about sea animals and marine biology.
The Ring of Fire focuses on a real-life underwater phenomenon under the same name. The Ring of Fire is a belt of volcanoes that stretches almost 25,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean, with many of them being underwater. In the movie, these volcanoes give the Octonauts lots of trouble. When the first volcano erupts, it sets off a chain reaction that leads to the other ones going off as well. The main cast is separated in small groups at this point, almost all of them being far away from the Octopod.
As always, the movie has extremely good animation that is consistent throughout the series. The characters are adorable and the animation is shockingly smooth. The design of the movie’s newest Gups (the Octonauts’ underwater vehicles) are creative and are based off of various sea creatures. These include a mantis shrimp and a Vegimal, one of the fictional half-vegetable half-animal creatures in the series.
I’m not going to lie, I came into this movie with pretty low expectations. Although I’m a die-hard Octonauts fan, I didn’t think a kids’ show like this would have much to offer in terms of movies. However, I was proven wrong.
The friendships between the characters are not really discussed much in the main series. Although we see lots of teamwork, not many scenes involve the crew getting out of life-threatening situations. This can be disappointing at times, but it makes the moments where they do show true friendships even more special.
One addition that I was really surprised by was the choice to group Tweak, the engineering rabbit with a southern accent, and Kwazii, an orange cat who is a pirate. These two have very few interactions at all in the main series, and I didn’t think they would be friends at all. But in the movie, they go through an emergency together and somehow make it out alive.
While lava and water are pouring into Tweak’s underground and underwater workshop, she and Kwazii are completely stuck and almost entirely submerged in water. They have to use teamwork and wit to make it out alive. I’m completely serious when I say my heart was racing, and I was leaning towards the TV. This has got to be one of the greatest cinematic scenes in history.
I also enjoyed how even though the crew was separated, they were still connected through Captain Barnacles’ old informational videos. While going through their scary situations, they all turn to his videos for guidance, although they usually stumbled across these videos accidentally. The crew’s Gups all have these movies downloaded and all use them for help throughout the movie. It’s really sweet and shows just how important Captain Barnacles is for the team.
There was one thing that irked me, despite how much I loved this movie. Towards the end, all of the new Gups come together to make the Gup-Z, a big super machine that can destroy everything. It gives off Transformer-esque, Voltron kind of vibes. The whole concept felt like a cheap rip off of other similar shows. However, I can’t say that I didn’t still enjoy this part of the movie. While trying to save some animals inside of a volcano starting to erupt lava, the Gup-Z comes in and saves the day. It’s a heroic moment that I really found fun.
Although Octonauts and the Ring of Fire is a childrens’ show, it is still very interesting and a good watch. Just because it’s meant for kids doesn’t mean you should write it off. I recommend everyone take a look at it and get a glimpse of this amazing writing and animation!
