THE WATER HORSE (2007) ** Claims to be based on Dick King-Smith's young adult novel, but I have no idea how. The book is a warm, wonderful, safe, family feeling work, sure to leave you happy. The film is full of militaristic nonsense and mayhem, love triangles, and general horrors beyond anything seen at the haberdashery. Why? No idea. The only thing that the military adds to it is the unintentional comedy of their expecting Nazi U-boats show up in Nessie's waters. How do they think they're going to get there? Dropped from the air by Stukas? Shepherded through the quintuple locks by Fifth Columnist goat farmers? It's all a nice effort to link the somewhat unlikely Loch Ness Monster legend to the only less likely Celtic legend of The Water Horse; so there's plenty to admire there, but other than the similarity that the book takes place in Loch Ness, and the movie is Norway or somewhere like that pretending to be Loch Ness...remind me of this before I get around to ever selling film rights to anything. The baby Nessie is really cool looking, though, and incredibly expressive, a fine achievement assuming that it's not real.
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