Dolphin Tale: "No Dolphin Has Ever Been Known To Lose It's Entire Tail, And Survive"

Director:  Charles Martin Smith

Writing:   Karen Janszen
                Noam Dromi 

Starring:  Nathan Gamble

                Harry Connick Jr

                Ashley Judd

                Morgan Freeman

                Kris Kristofferson

                Cozi Zuehlsdorff

                Austin Stowell
                Winter
Rating:     **

Release Date: 14/10/11

In 2005, a bottlenose dolphin called Winter was caught in a trap and taken in by the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. She was badly injured and was eventually fitted with a prosthetic tail replacing the one she lost. Dolphin Tale is the Hollywood version of Winter's story, and unfortunately it isn't brilliant.

This family drama about a caring boy and an injured Dolphin is an extremely touching one, its protagonist is Sawyer (Gamble), a reserved, innocent young boy who one day finds a dolphin washed up on the beach. He grows attached to the animal, played by the real life Winter, and often visits the marine hospital where Dr Clay Haskett (Connick Jr) and his team are looking after her. Winter's tail is soon amputated, leading to Sawyer to seek help from Dr Cameron McCarthy (Freeman) to give her a prosthetic replacement.

Right, so this could have been an extremely touching and sweet film, that was almost in the same vein as Free Willy and Flipper, but bad writing and bland 'comedy' ruined it. A whole scene is dedicated to using the gimicky 3D (FFS) by having the two children Sawyer and Hazel (Zuehlsdorff) play with a helicopter. It repeatedly flies at the screen, and I guess it was meant to make me say "whoa" and "that's amazing, It's like it's right there", but it just made me want to scream bloody murder at the screen. Also the constant 'hilarious' attacks by some bird, I think a pelican, weren't funny the first, second or hundredth time.

There was no real emotional connection with Gamble, he seemed to struggle to connect with Winter, Zuehlsdorff...in fact any of the cast, and for the star of the film, that isn't great. A vague storyline involving Sawyer's cousin Kyle (Stowell) is slightly more interesting then the rest of the film. He starts by leaving to join the army, but when he returns and has to deal with his own disability, after losing his leg in an explosion. Of course, the director/writers do their best to shove the connection between him and Winter straight down our throats, because we wouldn't have understood it before.

Connick Jr actually manages to do an alright job, all things considered. He benefits from the fact that Clay isn't a cliched stereotype, and all of his scenes are the ones that manage to generate some sort of emotion from the audience. Also, Freeman's appearance is an added bonus, but he is left in the background to much, in my opinion. It isn't until half way through until he first appears, but from that point on he is just awesome, almost saved the film, not gonna lie. Sawyer's mum, Lorraine (Judd) is pretty forgetful, and really doesn't add much to the film, which is a shame, because so much needed to be added.

Unfortunately the few good things were weighed down by the many bad things. Poor directing, no real emotion and a bland script really let this film down. It could have been the 21st century 'young boy meets sea creature' movie, but alas it just didn't work as well as those past types of movies. It is out now, but I say wait for the DVD, or even better Sky Movies...wait even better, get Free Willy or Flipper, now they are some good movies.

Dolphin Tale - Trailer