The Dolphin: Story of a Dreamer

I put this movie on on a whim, primarily on the basis that there have been some halfway decent movies available of late from lesser known studios in the vein of CG animation with a distinct appeal to varied age bands with their primary focus being children. However at this point I distinctly regret this choice.

This movie was an utter abomination, mass produced soulless CGI trash with little respect for children as viewers. It smacks of boardroom meetings, of what would be cheap and easy to churn out and of perceived ideas of what the core essence of children's animating should be. The characters range from the cardboard in the dolphin protagonist, to the extremely annoying in the form of the "comedy relief", and I use that term loosely, the jokes were flat, often crass (of course children like more "rude" humour but even a child can be disgusted with a lack of tact ) The character designs left an immeasurable amount to be desired, often lapsing into utter nightmare fuel in the case of the sunfish character, a design not even intended to be intimidating to children. The plot was limp and directionless and there were several points where the film seemed to be winding down to a natural end only to prolong its death throes by zooming off on another lifeless plot tangent.

In the end, the only thing that's left to be said about this movie is that in a domain like children's movies, this sort of film is a distinct step backwards from the current trend of catering richly to children and adults and going a little further with what they are capable of handling in their viewing, harking back to the older Disney where children were not quite reduced to fart jokes and cheap effortless animation. There is so much more out there to watch, don't waste you or your children's time with this money spinner.