Review of The Water Horse (2007) by Chads — 30 Dec 2007

Rather than truncate calendar time to allow Crusoe to reach adult-size more organically, the "water horse" achieves prolific weight gains as a result of his food intake. Since the monster is terrestrial-based, its wondorous metabolism and body expansion plays like a contrivance to keep "The Water Horse: Legends of the Deep" under two hours.

Nevertheless, this handsomely mounted rite-of-passage story, which grounds its fantastical elements within a realistic setting(like Gullimero Del Toro's "The Devil's Backbone" and "Pan's Labyrinth"), smartly takes the time to not only consider the boy's grief(over losing a father), but also his mother's.

Anne(Emily Watson) is given a reason to be pretty again. She has a choice of suitors. "The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep" is wiser than most children's films, because it knows that a mother's rehabilitated heart will help her son(Alex Etel) in the long run more than a purring water horse.

Crusoe, by the way, is a triumph of CGI. The water horse is cute as a button in the early scenes, and likewise, menacing and genuinely dangerous when the "monster" feels threatened. In other words, the creature is absolutely convincing as a living entity.

Like E.T.(and Godzilla), Crusoe has no visible male genitalia, and the screenwriter acknowledges this when Angus wonders aloud, "If you are a boy?" If his sister found the water horse, she'd assume it's a girl.

The Scottish landscape is properly Scottish; wild and green. "The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep" is an uncommonly rich children's movie, almost on par with John Sayles' "The Secret of Roan Inish".