The Water Horse 2007

     This film is based on a book by Dick King-Smith.  A lonely young boy finds an interesting egg along the shores of Loch Ness?  His curiosity leads him to protect it and he wants to figure out what will come out of the egg?  He didn't realize that it would turn into something magical!!  Amazingly, the Water Horse is growing ten times its size every day.  It is getting more and more difficult to keep his new friend a secret!!  The boy and the water horse form a strong bond and relationship together in this interesting story.

     This adaptation of the popular book by Babe author Dick King-Smith has a very different plot line than the original story?  There is escalating violence within a WWII-era setting.  The water horse becomes truly dangerous when fully grown in an old-school King Kong way.  It lashes out at people with snapping jaws and this leads the British soldiers to open fire.  There is darkness, imagery and the music can be intense and scary.  The boy appears to be drowning when he is sucked under the water.  There is thunder, lightening and creepy music with flashes of gargoyle/stature faces when the egg hatches.  The Germans are invading close to the house and one man is shown standing over the bloody body of a dead deer.  Additionally, the boy’s mother played by Emily Watson has a permanent facial expression of dismay, anxiety and sometimes boredom.     

 
112 min, Adventure directed by Jay Russell and written by Robert Nelson Jacobs with Bruce Allpress, Geraldine Brophy, Eddie Campbell, Ben Chaplin, Peter Corrigan, Brian Cox, Carl Dixon, Alex Etel, Nathan Christopher Haase, Craig Hall, Ian Harcourt, Rex Hurst, William Johnson, Megan Katherine, Elliot Lawless. 

Note:  Common Sense Media Charles Cassady Jr., 3* out of 5*, age 7+, 3* violence & scariness, 3* drinking, drugs & smoking, Rotten Tomatoes 74% with 90 critics 62% with 48,690 audience scores, Roger Ebert 3 1/2*, Metacritic 71 out of 100 with 24 critic reviews, 7.5 out of 10 with 62 user scores, The Guardian 2* out of 4* Peter Bradshaw, Amazon 4.7* out of 5* with 1336 reviews.

Special Note:  The famous "Surgeon's Photo" of a monster in Loch Ness was published in newspapers around the world in 1934.  It plays an important part in this story where it is claimed to be the first photo created in 1942. 

Mistakes:  In an early scene, Angus pulls out a first aid kit and the bandage on top is labeled Telfa.  This film is set in 1942 and Telfa bandages weren't marketed by the Kendall Company/Curity until 1954.  In the workshop, Angus has a toy ship which is clearly seen and is the SS America.  This ship was launched in 1940 and would have been relatively unknown in Europe.