“Glad to be here,” is the hallmark behind Paul Crowder’s exciting IMAX documentary, The Blue Angels, now streaming on Prime Video.

The Blue Angels takes pride in its insider look at one season, following five naval aviators selected for a mission that might be perceived as s public relations effort by the Navy, yet it is anything but. The documentary paints a calling – not only airmen who have the requisite number of hours in a Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet jet, but those who have the physical and mental characteristics to build trust in one another in the pursuit of perfection.

The Blue Angels puts audiences, who were fortunate enough to see the documentary in IMAX theaters, not only within the cockpit, less than a thousand feet off the deck, flying at 400+ miles per hour, mere inches off of each other’s aircraft, but within their mission briefings.

In those briefings, through the years of training and human conditioning are real humans, reacting to one another, giving feedback about where improvements are needed, becoming a team, and defining the courage, passion, and pride of a demonstration team that dates back to The Blue Angels’ creation, the brainchild of Admiral Chester Nimitz in 1946. The aircraft has advanced, but the principles of the Angels remain the same.

To say that the camerawork in this 93-minute documentary is awe-inspired is an understatement. Akin to the magnificent camerawork in Top Gun: Maverick, the theatricality and fictionalization of movements are replaced with real humans, interacting with their aircraft and one another.

The documentary starts at the very beginning of the 2022 season in El Centro, California, as we get to know the team in Pensacola, the command base for the Angels where we get to meet the aviators’ families. The struggle to keep a family together, the drive these individuals have to be the best, on to the selection process for the next generation of Angels – each team member has two tours of duty on the squad, and the successor replacement process is touching formally – to the crew behind the Angels, and their C-130 Hercules transport carrying 30,000 pounds of crew and gear from one demonstration show to the next throughout the United Staes, the amount of logistics and teamwork that goes into carrying each season of The Blue Angels through is simply amazing – the statement “glad to be here,” rings true throughout.

While the high-flying acrobatics is exciting to watch, the real testament to the strength and fortitude required to sit in that cockpit is demonstrated through a visit to a centrifuge in San Antonio, where the incumbent Angels go through G-force conditioning. Day One of the training has the pilots in a G-force support rig that isn’t practical in the cockpit. Day Two of the training goes into how the human body, every part of the human body, combats the forces, reinforcing the need to adapt quickly and consistently as blood is drawn from your brain down to your feet.

The Blue Angels is as physically demanding to watch as it is for the pilot’s endurance through a season of not only flying but administration and emotional wear and tear. The Blue Angels is now streaming on Prime Video.

The Blue Angels

Directed by Paul Crowder

94 minutes, Amazon MGM Studios/IMAX Documentaries/Bad Robot Productions