Cutie and the Beast

It's been a while since anyone has whispered about the infamous Loch Ness Monster (the world's largest hoax, literally) so this Christmas, Sony Pictures aims to put the big guy back on the radar with "The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep." The childhood fable, written by Robert Nelson Jacobs ("Chocolat") and based on the book by Dick King-Smith (who also wrote "Babe"), jumps off the screen with the help of "Lord of the Rings" special effects masters Weta Digital and Weta Workshop. And let's just say it's a good thing the eye-popping visuals are there - they serve as a handy distraction from the myriad of issues plaguing the film.

Strip away the razzle dazzle and what remains is a vapid World War II-era story of a young Scottish boy, Angus MacMorrow (Alex Etel, previously waxing adorable in "Millions"), who brings home a colorful egg he discovers on the beach. Out hatches a purple creature that he names Crusoe, one that grunts, wheezes, nuzzles, flops around in the water and nibbles on slices of potato. In a matter of weeks, he grows to an unmanageable size (from a bucket to the bathtub to the sea).

So where are Angus' parents while he is turning this unusual critter into a house pet? His dad is off at war, never to return, and his mom (a waste of Emily Watson) pulls a "Dear Frankie" by letting Angus believe he will one day show up at the door. But deep down he knows the hard truth, and the oversized beast, which looks like a brontosaurus crossed with a turtle, becomes the surrogate man in his life. Also in the running is Lewis (Ben Chaplin), a mysterious handy man who spends a lot of time poking around the house and not talking about his visibly weathered past.

As far as boy-and-nonhuman-friend stories go, "The Water Horse" comes nowhere near the ranks of, say, "The Iron Giant" or "E.T.," which it desperately wants to emulate (there is a scene of Crusoe giving Angus a water ride that screams of the E.T. bike moment, minus the greatness). There's an emotional disconnect that keeps the film from ever hitting beyond the surface, which has been a recurring problem in director Jay Russell's works ("Tuck Everlasting," for one).

Another annoyance is the film's desire to slam home the "war is bad" message in a way that even a toddler would recognize as overbearing. The "bad guys" in the film are the military men, including Captain Hamilton (David Morrissey), and they are ruthlessly inhumane caricatures who decide they may as well bombard the sea creature with bombs. This doesn't cause him to R.I.P. but it does rightly piss him off, leading him to act out and nearly kill the kid on a few occasions. Whatever happened to wholesome family fun around the holidays? You're better off staying home and thanking TBS for its 'round-the-clock marathon of the aging-gracefully "A Christmas Story."

The Weta elements, a pleasant enough performance by Etel and the attention-grabbing scenery, shot in New Zealand and Scotland, keep the film from being a complete waste of time. But just barely. "Water Horse" is an inept knock-off and hardly a gift worth opening this holiday season.