A young boy named Angus MacMorrow takes home a strange object he finds on the beach. He soon realises that it is a magical egg and finds himself raising an amazing creature: a mythical ‘water horse.’ Angus and the creature, who he names Crusoe, soon form a strong bond of friendship, and Angus begins an extraordinary journey of discovery, protecting a secret that gives birth to a legend...

The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep is based on The Sheep-Pig novel by children’s author Dick King-Smith. The film is geared more towards a young audience, but that's not to say that adults won't get anything from this film.

As usual with movies where children play the main characters, the success of this film rests on the shoulders of young Alex Etel. If we don't believe Angus's attachment to Crusoe is real, then the whole movie falls apart. Thankfully, Etel turns in a wonderful performance and you really believe he has formed a bond with the CGI monster.

The computer effects of Crusoe are pretty impressive and, for the most part, you really can suspend disbelief and get sucked into the story, believing that Crusoe is real. But then that's hardly surprising when you discover that Weta Digital and Weta Workshop were responsible for the CGI and model work. Weta was more famously responsible for the effects that appeared in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The supporting cast all turn in good performances, even if the majority of the characters are a little too two-dimensional. It was also pretty obvious, from the start, who Brian Cox would turn out to be. And, while the segments of him talking about the past were nice touches, the young couple he was telling the story to didn't come across as believable - especially the boy.

There's plenty of action and comedy in this movie. Much of the humour comes from the locals spotting the creature and then creating their own monster in order to get a story in the local paper. They build a model and photograph it, as the real monster swims in the Loch just out of their view. The photo they produce is one that everyone knows - the most famous photo of the monster, which in reality was taken in the 1930s and eventually revealed as a hoax by the photographer.

Wilhelm scream spotters (do a Google search if you're not familiar with this) will also be pleased to hear that there's a scream included here in the sequence with the boat being thrown out of the water.

Irish and Scottish viewers might not be overly impressed that for some reason traditional Irish instruments and music is used in place of Scottish music in the soundtrack. I'm not overly sure why this is, but I assume most American's won't have a clue, but to those that know the difference it does seem a bit of an odd stylistic choice.

Extras include Deleted Scenes (6 min, 42 sec worth of scenes cut from the movie. Some of which are finished sequences, but not all as there's a boom mic clearly visible in one scene); Myths and Legends (10 min, 33 sec look at the legend of the Loch Ness monster - modern and ancient. There's interviews with several people who are experts, including Steve Feltham whose been living in a van near Loch Ness for the last 15 years hoping to catch a glimpse of the monster - he hasn't so far. It also looks at the history of the most famous hoax photo which was taken by a London surgeon in 1934); The Story (11 min, 48 sec interview with the director, the book's author and some of the cast); The Characters (15 min, 36 sec featurette that looks at the actors as well as the dog that appears); Setting the Scene (13 min, 36 sec look at the various locations where the movie was shot, including the Scottish village set which was built from scratch and the plane fly-past which the director was expecting to take an entire day, but was done in one shot); Water Work: Creating the Water Horse (11 min, 45 sec look at how the water effects were created); Creating Crusoe (14 min, 21 sec featurette that looks at creating the monster).

To sum up, this movie will surely be a huge hit with young viewers, but adults may find it lacking in many departments - mainly because it feels like a movie you've already seen. It is very much like a cross between Free Willy and E.T. In fact the poster image for the movie (reprinted on the DVD cover) is not a million miles away from the Free Willy poster).

7

Nick Smithson