THE WATER HORSE:
LEGEND OF THE DEEP
  
STARRING: Emily Watson, Alex Etel,
Ben Chaplin, David Morrissey, Brian Cox
2007, 115 Minutes, Directed by:
Jay Russell
 Think
E.T. —
but with the boy befriending the Loch Ness monster instead of a cute alien and
you’ll have a good idea of what to expect of The Water Horse: Legend of the
Deep.
It is Scotland during World War
II. A morose young boy discovers an egg while combing the beach one day. He
takes the egg home where it hatches a cute tiny little amphibian CGI effect
resembling a dinosaur with flippers —
you know, the ones with long necks. (A nice gag in the movie is that the famous
photograph of the Loch Ness creature is in fact a fake while the real monster
was only swimming a short distance away from the photographers!) Obviously the
boy has to hide the creature from adult authority figures because, hey, adults
are obviously killjoys when it comes to this sort of thing. You know, kids
adopting an unknown species of pet which actually tries to bite the kid a few
times as well as once or twice almost drowning the poor tyke throughout the
course of the movie.
However the small boy’s task is
complicated by the fact that seemingly half the British army has pitched their
tents right on their front lawn. Add to this some paranoia about a possible
invasion spearheaded by a German submarine and before you can say
Iron Giant, you pretty much have an idea of how
things are going to play out —
especially as the movie goes to great lengths to laboriously foreshadow certain
key events.
Sheer predictability and
unoriginality aside, Water Horse features some decent acting (at least
the boy isn’t too cute-sy); okay special effects even though the full-sized
computer-generated sea creature at times lack the sort of solidity that more
traditional methods might have lent it; and some pretty Scottish landscapes and
backgrounds. It is also a lot less juvenile than a lot of Hollywood pap aimed at
children out there.
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"It's Bedknobs & Broomsticks meets Benji!" |
On the negative side the
movie’s framing device —
of an oldster regaling two young American tourists with his tale in a Scottish
pub —
is awkward and long-winded. Also, the so-called payoff as to the identity of the
old-timer is hardly a surprise. In a way one supposes the movie can be read as a
cautionary tale about being approached by elderly persons in public spaces while
on holiday abroad. Give them half a chance and they’ll bore you to tears with
far-fetched tales nicked from movies such as E.T. and Iron Giant, a bit like the
grandfather in The Simpsons . . .
Despite the occasionally
charming or amusing moment an air of familiarity which will ruin the film for
adults hangs over the proceedings. Kids will enjoy it even though some scenes
might cause smaller children distress, but even they might grow restless as the
movie takes its time get to the sort of stuff kids like such as a scene in which
the baby sea creature being chased by a bulldog causing all kinds of havoc in
the process. Still, things could have been worse. At least the movie went to the
trouble of retaining the original setting of the source novel (by British author
Dick King-Smith, first published in 1990) and one burp gag aside never
downgrades the material at hand.
The movie is incidentally made
by Walden Media which had a hit with the recent faithful adaptation of
Chronicles of Narnia and also produced the children
fantasy, Bridge to Terabithia. It seems that they have taken it upon
themselves to make the sort of old-fashioned family entertainment that Disney
used to make in its heyday. That is, before Disney tried to be hip and
discovered irony in flicks such as Enchanted. A
Narnia sequel, Prince Caspian, is due
in 2008. (If you want to go back even further, Water Horse is Bedknobs
& Broomsticks meets Benji!)
In short: Water Horse
isn’t that bad, just somewhat average and uninspiring. The chances are quite
good though that you’ve probably sat through much much worse with your kids . .
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