Charles Martin Smith’s, inspired-by-true-events, feel-good family movie, Dolphin Tale 3D exhibits an admirable refusal to cave-in to generic Disney dramatic devices, creating a restrained children’s movie about the importance of family and education.
Based on the story of Winter, the first dolphin to be successfully fitted with a prosthetic tail, Dolphin Tale 3D, uses Sawyer (Nathan Gamble), a fictional, farther less and wayward 11 year old boy to tell its remarkable story. This unsociable and disenfranchised child can’t even raise his head from his Nintendo at the leaving party of his cousin (Austin Stowell), so deep is the emotional scarring caused by his father’s departure. His melancholy has affected his grades, resulting in his summer holidays being dictated by the summer school he’s begrudgingly been enrolled in. However, on one fateful morning, during his routine bicycle journey to school he encounters Winter, a dolphin washed up on the shore and entangled in a crab trap. He uses his trusty pocket knife to free this trapped mammal and only moments later a team of marine biologists quickly swarm over the scene, taking Winter away with them. Mightily impressed with their rapid response and intuitive work, Sawyer’s intrigue towards Winters health and his admiration for these sea life enthusiasts leads him to their homely aquarium. He soon becomes engaged in their work and quickly finds something he feels passionate about, breathing a new sense of belonging into his otherwise mundane life of disappointment and rejection.
Dolphin Tale 3D is as solid a family film as you’ll find all year. Despite its mildly haphazard attempts to insert some well meaning morals throughout the story, the film never succumbs to misguided slap stick humour or overly schmaltzy dramatic set pieces, allowing the genuinely interesting tale of Winter’s remarkable recovery to take centre stage. Indeed, Dolphin Tale 3D should be applauded for never manipulating the audience into a forced emotional response – a crime all too often committed by big Hollywood Kids films.
Nathan Gamble and Cori Zuehlsdorff (as Hazel, the young girl working at the marine who introduces Sawyer to her world of aquatic adventures) carry the film, never seeming out of depth within their roles – especially considering their tender ages. The rest of the cast are competent enough, with Ashley Judd and Harry Connick Jnr (as Sawyer and Hazel’s respective parents) doing just enough with the minimal material they’re given to work with. However, it’s Morgan Freeman, as the eccentric inventor who creates Winter’s prosthetic tale that adds the most to the mix. His caring, yet quirky performance adds some much needed laughter to the film’s more serious moments, preventing Dolphin Tale 3D’s light hearted pace from ever descending into anything too harrowing for younger audiences.
It isn’t to say there aren’t areas of Dolphin Tale 3D which feel forced. Much like the superfluous 3D underwater scenes, the frame narrative of disabled war victims hangs in the air, threatening to expand into an all American tribute to ‘the troops’ – thankfully though Dolphin Tale 3D understands it’s child friendly genre lacks the emotional depth or seriousness required to deal with such an intense subject. Another welcome addition to the cutting room floor is the potential relationship which threatens to blossom between Sawyer’s neglected mother and Hazel’s father. No doubt removed more out of necessity (the films runtime runs dangerously close to the two hour mark for a children’s film) than a conscious decision by the director – the film greatly benefits from choosing not to expand upon this aimless romantic subplot Dolphin Tale 3D’s remarkably middle of the road approach to children’s entertainment actually comes as a welcome relief to the overblown adventures of regurgitated cartoon characters and special effects laden kiddy action flicks. Whilst in no way spectacular, the film’s ability to never patronize its young audience is admirable, making it a hugely enjoyable (if perhaps a little ‘throwaway’) piece of childhood entertainment.
Director: Charles Martin Smith
Writers: Karen Janszen, Noam Dromi
Stars:Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd and Harry Connick Jr.
Runtime: 113 min
Country: USA
Film Rating: 
