Slightly later than usual, here is the latest coverage and reviews relating to The End of the Line film and our campaign to protect the world’s oceans.

Another busy week has seen more reviews, features and support from media in the US, Canada and Britain.

First mention must go to the review of The End of the Line by respected film critic Roger Ebert, in the Chicago Sun Times.

He gave the film 3/4 stars, saying: “The End of the Line, directed by Rupert Murray, based on a book by Charles Clover, is constructed from interviews with many experts, a good deal of historical footage, and much incredible footage from under the sea, including breathtaking vistas of sea preserves.”

Canada’s National Post reviews the film, and also gives it 3 stars. Vanessa Farquharson focuses on the sustainability issues the film raises.

She writes: “One of the most amazing shots in the film is of a harbour in [Alaska], full of boats and fishermen all waiting for a single flare to go off, at which point it becomes total chaos as they all start motoring around.

“It looks utterly crazy and confusing, but the people interviewed afterward say they understand the long-term benefits of such restrictions. “We don’t just want to be fishing for the next couple years,” says one man. “We want to be doing this for the next 10 years or more.”

Glenn Sumi reviews the film for Toronto’s weekly entertainment magazine Now, giving the film 3/5 stars. “You won’t want to eat sushi after watching Rupert Murray’s stomach-churning doc about the greedy corporations rapidly depleting the oceans of fish.

“If the findings in the film, based on UK journalist Charles Clover’s whistle-blowing book, are correct, the seas will be empty of our finned friends by 2050.”

Chicago Reader blog carries a short but very complimentary review of the film. Andrea Gonvall says: “This is advocacy filmmaking at its finest, thoroughly researched and beautifully shot.”

James Verniere in the Boston Globe says the film needs a ’star’, though, strangely, he also questions why Ted Danson was involved. He writes:

“The film argues with tremendous authority that, driven by greed, the world’s high-tech fishing industry is systematically reducing sea life and will eventually render it extinct.”

And in a less-than-complimentary review, Boston.com claims the film is overloaded with data. But Wesley Morris does write:

“The movie is most effective when it applies statistics to actual cases and people.

“We meet a Senegalese fisherman having a hard time competing with the resources and evil relentlessness of certain industrial fisheries. You could make an entire film about that.”

The Boston Phoenix gives the film 3/4 in its review by Gerald Peary. He says: “Eating fish is great for you — but it’s a different story for the poor fish.

“That’s the semi-doomsday message from Rupert Murray’s documentary call to action, which roams the globe to show how the overfishing of our oceans by greedy multinationals has endangered popular species like bluefin tuna, marlin, and Atlantic salmon.”

The decision by Raymond Blanc, the world-famous chef, to serve only sustainable seafood at his restaurant, Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, is covered by Susie Mesure in The Independent.

The End of the Live gets a credit for raising the issue of sustainability: “The plight of overfished species has grabbed the public’s attention in recent weeks, helped by a new film dubbed the “Inconvenient Truth of the oceans” at the Sundance Film Festival.”

Following up on the panel discussion at a recent Seattle screening, Wendy Ysasi, on the Collaborative Methods blog, questions why toxic chemicals in fish were not mentioned in the film. She is not particularly satisfied with the response her question gets.