Dolphin Tale (2011)

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Dolphin Tale

6/10

Starring

Harry Connick, Jr.
Nathan Gamble
Ashley Judd
Kris Kristofferson
Morgan Freeman
Jim Fitzpatrick
Winter

Directed by Charles Martin Smith

Distributed by Warner Bros.

Based on a book of the same name, the film is about the true story of “Winter”, a bottlenose dolphin that was rescued in December 2005 off the Florida coast and taken in by the Clearwater Marine Aquarium and in the process losing its tail and having to be fitted with a prosthetic one.

Directed by Charles Martin Smith (Air Bud 1997), Dolphin Tale is a family movie that has all the twist and turns that makes a family movie a family movie, it is so cliché-ish that u can guess your way through the movie, down to the very last scene.

The cast of the movie were quite remarkable though, as they didn’t chunk out the regular low acting like most family movies do. The story is about a dolphin named Winter who got caught in a crab net, and was rescued by Clearwater Marine Aquarium, who saved her life by amputating the dolphin’s tail. In other to swim the dolphin develop and irregular swimming pattern which proved good at first until it started to damage the spinal cord, to save her life again a prosthetic tale was attached to the dolphin.

Now let’s take this story and take it through the Hollywood mixer and we get:

A young boy who is raised by a single parent (Ashley Judd), one day he saves a dolphin from a crab net and then an attachment began, we have a lonely dolphin with no tail and also a lonely boy with no father, add the Disney recipe of a good film and ta-da!!! The boy and the animal form a bond, and only the boy seems to get this animal, and then there is a doctor,

Who knows how to do those things that need to be done; he makes the magical tail that makes everything all better.

Sadly though Disney had nothing to do with this picture, but their time tested family template was employed in this movie. I guess one thing about the acting that I so love, is the boy who just plays his part so well without overdoing it, and also Morgan Freeman aced as you may guess his role in a way a professional should.

Unlike what Robert De Niro delivered in Killer Elite. Smith went all the way in this movie to make sure it touches everyone, it lacks nothing of the Disney magic, an injured animal, a lonely child, a crippled cute girl, a crippled war hero…name it in this movie they have it.

A good family movie for everyone, one you may forget soon but for the time being…enjoy.