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Morning Light is directed by Mark Monroe. It is produced
by Roy Disney, Leslie DeMeuse, and Morgan Sackett. The film
was edited by Paul Crowder. The team followed in the film
consists of Chris Branning, Graham Brant-Zawadzki, Chris
Clark, Charlie Enright, Jesse Fielding, Robbie Kane, Steve
Manson, Chris Schubert, Kate Theisen, Mark Towill, Genny
Tulloch, Piet van Os, Chris Welch, Kit Will and Jeremy Wilmot.
***
Morning Light is a documentary from Disney that follows
the exploits of youngest crew to compete in the Transpac
– with all 15 crew members or varying experience being between
18 and 23 years of age at the time. The film follows the
formation of the Morning Light sailing team, their training
prior to the race, and of course, the race itself. ***
This is one of those movies I came into having no idea
what to expect. I’m not a sailing fan (kind of hard to be
when you’re like me and live hundreds of miles from the
nearest ocean), and I mostly only watched the movie for
review purposes. Well, I can safely say I was pleasantly
surprised at the fin al product. ***
You know the creator of a documentary has succeeded
when their documentary is one that will manage to entertain
even those who aren’t a fan of the subject being focused
on in the film. If you’re not a sailing fan, it’s no secret
that Morning Light won’t change your mind. But for its nearly
100-minute duration, you’ll come to know and love the crew
of this boat, and be cheering for them. This manages to
be a solid documentary, and its content guarantees that
it is one of those rare documentaries capable of finding
a large audience – too bad it hasn’t really received any
heavy sort of promotion. ***
Ultimately, Morning Light does what it sets out to
do – and does it very well. It’s disappointing to see that
this documentary, one that is appropriate for all ages and
will interest nearly any moviegoer, hasn’t been promoted
as heavily as it should be. That aside, Morning Light is
a terrific documentary, and deserves a recommendation. ---
Image and Sound:
As a documentary, Morning Light was shot on-location,
and its footage stems from numerous sources. As such, like
most documentaries, the picture can be a bit uneven throughout.
This is NOT the fault of Disney – any documentary will turn
out like this, even in 1080p on a Blu-Ray. Still, that complaint
aside, this doc looks just as good as it ever will. Everything
is clear and fairly well-detailed. The lossless audio track
isn’t the best one you’ll ever encounter, but that’s largely
due to the atmospheric conditions under which the doc was
filmed. Still, as far as documentaries go, the image and
sound quality for Morning Light is well above average. ---
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