ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies

DO YOU believe in the Loch Ness monster? Controversy over the great beastie’s origins might just be resolved by The Water Horse, a sweet, old-fashioned family film based on the novel by Babe author Dick King-Smith. Filmed in Scotland and New Zealand, this is an amiable, entertaining affair that should appeal to younger
children in search of a mid-term cinema trip.

Told in flashback from a rather kitsch vision of contemporary Scotland, the film unfolds during the Second World War. Young Angus MacMorrow (Alex Etel) is eagerly awaiting the return of his father, unwilling to acknowledge that he is missing believed killed.

His mother Anne (Emily Watson) is the housekeeper at an estate that is about to become home to a troop of British soldiers. Angus has other things to worry about. He has found an egg that hatches to reveal a cute little water horse that he names Crusoe. This supposedly mythical creature soon outgrows the bathtub and it becomes clear that the local loch may be the only place big enough to serve as his new home.

The Water Horse has the feel of a film that Disney might have made a few generations ago. It works on a fairly superficial level with slapstick fun as Crusoe outgrows his status as a household pet and trite human drama as the family come under the thumb of pompous captain Hamilton (David Morrissey).

The story is still good fun, though, and Alex Etel is fast becoming one of Britain’s most talented child actors.

Nationwide release

Director: Jay Russell
Stars: Emily Watson, Alex Etel, Ben Chaplin, David Morrissey, Brian Cox, Priyanka XI, Marshall Napier
Screenwriter: Robert Nelson Jacobs based on the novel by Dick King-Smith
Certificate: PG
Running time: 111 mins
Country: USA/UK
Year: 2007

© Allan Hunter,