A beautiful story of a friendship between a boy called Angus and a legendary sea creature, this fantasy movie is a must-see for everyone who is interested in the Scottish legend of the monster of Loch Ness, or interested in history. In fact, the film begins with an old Angus telling the story of the Loch Ness monster to a young couple in a Scottish pub near the lake. When he was a little boy, Angus found a strange egg with beautiful pearl-water blue colors; from the egg came a little sea monster that he called Crusoe and that at a certain point he has to free into the lake, because it will be bigger and bigger, and no one can know this secret.
The story is set during World War II, precisely in 1942; Angus is living in a beautiful mansion on the Loch Ness shores with his mom and his sister, but one day troops of the Royal Artillery arrive at the house and an artillery battery is set up near the lake for protecting the area from possible attacking from German U-Bots.
The major themes of the movie are the atrocity of war and the constant fear people lived in, risking their lives every day, the relationship between man and animal, that can be a beautiful friendship in the case of Angus, but the film focus also on how man destroy nature and betray the trust of all other creatures.
The Water Horse is produced by Jay Russell and is based on a fantasy children novel with the same name written by Dick King Smith, the English writer of the famous The Sheep-Pig, or Babe the Gallant Pig, that was adapted as the movie Babe in 1995 (one of my childhood favorite movies, loved it).
The actors are amazing in this film; among others we have the great Emily Watson in the role of Angus’ mother, the soundtracks of the film are beautiful in my opinion, you can hear all typical Scottish Celtic music during the movie, and the setting is astonishing. Scotland is wonderful.
Plus, the visual effects were made by the same New Zealand based companies Weta Digital and Weta Workshop that made also the visual effects of all The Chronicles of Narnia films.