When a young boy named Angus (Alex Etel) discovers an egg-like object along the shores of Loch Ness, he sneaks it back to his family’s home and hides it in a workshop. The edge hatches a short time later, and the strangest creature Angus has ever seen emerges. He later discovers it’s actually a water horse, a creature from Scottish legend. Only one water horse can exist at a time, so Angus is careful to keep the beast, which he names Crusoe, secret from his mother and the detachment of British soldiers billeted in their home. But with Crusoe growing larger and larger every day, this is easier said than done.

CRITIQUE

This adaptation of Dick King-Smith’s children’s book The Water Horse is quite good for the first half hour, but after that it quickly descends into kiddie-flick clichés, muddled plotting, and unnecessary, unfunny slapstick and lowbrow comedy. In translating the book to the screen, director Jay Russell (who directed the quite good My Dog Skip and the quite uneven Ladder 49) and screenwriter Robert Nelson Jacobs (who wrote the quite good Flushed Away and the quite terrible Chocolat) have taken the simple, straightforward charms of King-Smith’s book and bastardized the plot into just another shamelessly calculated Hollywood product.

Given just how good the first act is, I should have known the movie would eventually fall apart. The opening scenes and setup are by no means groundbreaking, but they are deftly handled and show promise. But as soon as Crusoe let loose with a smelly belch, I started losing faith, a faith I completely lost halfway through the scene where Crusoe and the soldiers’ bulldog mascot tear through the house and interrupt a dinner party.

It’s almost as if I weren’t even watching the same movie anymore or as if the movie had been taken from the original filmmakers and cruelly reworked by other hands. What begins as something of a cross between E.T. and Hope and Glory (although not as good as either) ends up being far more akin to a melding of Godzilla (the 1998 version) and Slappy and the Stinkers. (Needless to say, King-Smith was far better served when his The Sheep-Pig was turned into Babe.)

The first half of the movie seems designed to delight preschoolers, while the second hour (which, not surprisingly, is almost totally the invention of the filmmakers) plays as if it hopes to scare the living daylights out of them. The best children’s stories often have a dark edge to them, but much of what happens here is a bit much for the intended audience. The final moment with the dog may take place largely off-camera, but it’s still completely unnecessary.

There was also no need to suddenly transform the soldiers into a bunch of cold, bloodthirsty bastards. (If this is intended to make the story relevant to the world of today, it goes beyond pointless and stupid and heads straight on into being risible). And I’m not sure how youngsters will react to seeing a creature that was initially cute, funny and cuddly quickly turn into the long-lost cousin of that thing from Cloverfield; I know it certainly would have disturbed me.       

The creature effects, courtesy of the folks at WETA Digital, are highly variable. The smaller Crusoe often looks very convincing, but the fully-grown version looks like the CGI work didn’t reach the final stages of rendering. (Much of the final act occurs at night, likely in order to help obscure the effects.) The sequence in which Crusoe takes Angus on a trip across the depths of the loch looks quite poor (don’t bother trying to figure out exactly how Angus--who’d likely drown in the bathtub--manages to survive the trip), and the creature never convincingly interacts with the loch’s surface whenever it surfaces. Such matters aren’t likely to bother young children, but being completely uninvolved in the latter stages of the story left me with little to do but notice this sort of thing.

THE VIDEO

The 2.40:1/1080p transfer is dominated by earth tones and desaturated grays, imparting the Scottish setting (which is actually New Zealand) with a cold, damp look. The washed-out colors are often exceptionally rendered, and the image is nicely detailed, with a strong sense of depth. Black levels aren’t quite as strong as they could have been, which becomes a problem during the final act; some darker shots are a little soft and murky, although I’m sure this is inherent in the source elements. (As I alluded to earlier, this could have been done in order to take the rough edges off the visual effects).

THE AUDIO

The sound design makes use of only the two extreme ends of the audio spectrum: it’s either quiet and constricted or very loud and boisterous. As a result, the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio--available in English, French, or Portuguese--is front heavy during the dialogue scenes and booming enough to give you a splitting headache during the action scenes. Watch the movie and you’ll constantly be reaching for your remote, turning up the volume to hear the dialogue and then frantically struggling to turn it down whenever the action cuts loose.

Bass action is thunderous at times (especially from all of that cannon fire), and surround action is handled quite well (the sounds of Crusoe darting around the workshop are a standout). Spanish and Thai Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks are also included. English, English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese (Traditional or Simplified), Korean, and Thai subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

The extras begin with eight deleted scenes (6 minutes). Most are brief transitional bits, but at least three help flesh out subplots left underdeveloped in the final cut.

The bulk of the extras consist of the following six featurettes, which never rise above the level of EPK-style promotion fluff:

Myths and Legends (10 minutes) is an exploration of the Scottish kelpie/water horse legend that inspired the story.

The Story (11 minutes) looks at how the story jumped from the page to the big screen.

The Characters (15 minutes) covers casting.

Setting the Scene (13 minutes) looks at the New Zealand location work.

Water Work: Creating The Water Horse (11 minutes) explores the challenges of working with water, both real and that created in the digital realm.

Creating Crusoe (14 minutes) looks at the effects used to bring the creature to life.

The Virtual Crusoe Game (Blu-ray Exclusive) is a dull interactive trifle in which you raise your own water horse. You’re expected to feed and care for the creature, and if you’re successful you’ll eventually see it grow to maturity and you’ll win the game. Game play is extremely slow and boring, so much so that even very undemanding children will likely become bored early on.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The Water Horse is likely to entertain kids of a certain age, so you may want to rent it and let your children have at it. Just make sure you have something else to keep you occupied for a couple of hours.