16th May, 2008 Login • Register
Search This Site
The Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep (2007) DVD Review
The Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep (2007) DVD Credits:
The Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep (2007) Directed by:
Jay Russell
The Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep (2007) Written by:
Robert Nelson Jacobs
The Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep (2007) Cast:
Emily Watson, Ben Chaplin, Alex Etel, David Morrissey
The Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep (2007) Released by:
Not available at this time
Region:
1
The Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep (2007) DVD Release Date:
7th April 2008
Our Rating: Extras Rating:

User Rating:  Log in to rate this DVD
The Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep (2007) Synopsis:

Based on the children's fantasy novel by British author Dick King-Smith. "The Water Horse" tells the story of a lonely boy in Scotland who finds a mysterious egg from which hatches a "water horse" -- a mythical sea monster of Scottish legend.

The Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep (2007) DVD Review:

The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep accomplishes a remarkable feat: it proves to be an entirely unoriginal film from start to finish, yet it manages to be entirely successful on every filmmaking level despite that undeniable flaw. Audiences have seen this very same story numerous times before, and virtually every scene in the film recalls moments from previous films gone by, but The Water Horse is so uniformly well-made that I honestly didn’t care how derivative it was while I was watching.

The first half of the film borrows liberally from Steven Spielberg’s family classic, E.T. Angus is a boy whose father has been shipped off to fight in World War II. He’s a lonely child with no friends, desperate for someone or something to latch on to for friendship. He soon finds an egg on the beach, which eventually hatches and reveals a strange (and undeniably cute) looking sea creature. Angus keeps the creature, which he names Crusoe (after Robinson Crusoe), and tries to keep him a secret from everybody else. His various trials and tribulations in keeping such a strange creature a secret mirrors Elliott’s similar troubles in keeping E.T. hidden from the rest of the world. Even some of the set-pieces seem a little too similar to E.T., such as Crusoe’s initially creepy introduction to Angus and a wild goose-chase through the house as Angus tries to keep Crusoe quiet. However, the period Scottish environments and the uniqueness of the creature help disguise the familiarity of the story. Furthermore, the believable special effects and the moving performance from Alex Etel, the boy playing Angus, prove that a movie doesn’t necessarily have to be original to be affecting.

If the first half of the film calls to mind E.T., then the second half of the film recalls the lesser family classic, Free Willy. Crusoe may start the film as a cuddly little water horse, but we all know that he is eventually going to become the fabled Loch Ness monster, and it is at this point in the film that the screenplay shifts into Free Willy territory. Angus is forced to release Crusoe into the ocean due to his giant size, and soon enough the military goes after Crusoe, thinking him to be a threat. If Angus riding on Crusoe’s back and smiling doesn’t bring Free Willy immediately to mind, then the climax of the film most certainly will. I won’t spoil anything with specifics, but suffice it to say that during the final scenes I found myself crying out, “Jump Willy—err, Crusoe! Jump!” However, like the first half of the film, I also found myself enjoying the second half just as much, despite its obvious influences.

The Water Horse takes a cue from another film, albeit less directly, and that is Guillermo Del Toro’s recent fantasy masterpiece, Pan’s Labyrinth. Much like Del Toro’s film, The Water Horse is a fantasy film that takes place in a realistic, wartime setting. This adds a welcome levity to the film and grounds the fantasy elements in a darker and more realistic world. The war elements are nowhere near as brutal as the R-rated intensity found in Pan’s Labyrinth, but they aid the film in a similar way by adding some emotional realism by way of the wartime historical context.

Alex Etel does an outstanding job in his portrayal as Angus. He never becomes too whiney and always seems like a fully-fleshed out child with complex feelings, rather than being one of the thinly drawn child characters that often populate fantasy films. Most importantly, Etel does a commendable job acting opposite a computer animated creature that was never actually on set with him. In watching films with computer animated special effects one often forgets that the actors have nothing to react to, as the special effects are all added in post-production after principal photography has been completed. This is hard enough for a well-trained adult actor, but seeing Etel’s genuine emotional responses to a creature that’s not even there is a wonder to behold.

The human performance is only half of the equation though, as Crusoe still has to be convincingly rendered by the special effects artists in order for us to fully buy into their relationship. Save for a couple of spotty moments, Crusoe looks amazingly lifelike throughout the film. Perhaps the most impressive moments are the earlier ones when he has just hatched. His muscle structure and body movements look eerily real, despite the fact that such a creature doesn’t even exist. Crusoe gets a little less believable when he’s full grown, mostly during the scenes when Angus rides on his back. Achieving believable interaction between real humans and computer animated characters has always been one of the harder things to achieve. When Crusoe is little and Angus pets him, the interaction is entirely believable, but when Crusoe is big and Angus rides on his back, the full-body interaction between the two looks more stilted. Luckily, we’re invested enough in the characters by that point that it’s not too detrimental. The more important thing is that the effects artists instill Crusoe with a reality and an emotional depth. There's a humanity to Crusoe, but thankfully he hasn't been given any anthropomorphic qualities. He genuinely acts like an animal at all times: sometimes like a cute puppy and other times like an angry bear, and his animalistic realism goes a long way in selling him as a real creature on screen.

All of the extras on this 2-Disc Special Edition are relegated to the second disc, where you’ll find a few deleted scenes and a group of featurettes that combine into a 76-minute making-of documentary. The featurettes are entitled: “Myths and Legends,” “The Story,” “The Characters,” “Setting the Scene,” “Water Work: Creating the Water Horse,” and “Creating Crusoe.” These featurettes make for a comprehensive look at the film, with special attention paid to how the special effects team brought Crusoe to life. It would have been nice to have an audio commentary on the first disc, but this meaty making-of helps pick up the slack.

The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep may not be all that original, but it is an entertaining and moving fantasy for the whole family. It’s also a classy return to the old-fashioned family film that favored good storytelling over stupid jokes. E.T. and Free Willy may have told the story first, but as a fantasy film in the same vein for a new generation, The Water Horse makes for a wonderful retelling.

Our Rating: Extras Rating: User Rating:  Log in to rate this DVD

The Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep (2007) DVD review written by: Anthony Berk

Content Management System provided by P J Thomson - Freelance Web Design - PHP/MySQL Development