I'm sure you've heard of Flipper, Beethoven, Homeward Bound, Shiloh, etc. These types of films are rarely very good, and are often the story of a lonely child (multiple children on occasion) who find an animal they have adventures with. These films are popular with the "my dog is my fur-child" nonsense people, and with little kids. Dolphin Tale isn't much different, but it strays from the norm enough to excite kids.
Sawyer is an 11-year-old boy who is lonely and sad that his beloved cousin Kyle is enrolling in the military. One day he meets a concerned fisherman who has found a bottlenose dolphin with an injured tail (caught in a crab trap), and the two call a rescue team and although Sawyer continues skipping classes to visit the dolphin, his mother notices his bad moods improving and permits him to continue visiting "Winter". Winter's tail has to be amputated but a prosthetic tail is built so Winter can properly swim. Sawyer also takes up volunteering at the local hospital. Meanwhile Kyle becomes depressed, and during a hurricane Winter may have to be euthanized. Can Sawyer save the dolphin from this fate?
Dolphin Tale had some of those "so-fake-sweet-I'm-gonna-puke" moments, along with incredibly dorky moments, but it can hold an audience with its strange originality. The soundtrack wasn't very good but the acting was half-decent and the bottlenose dolphin was pretty cute. What some people may find interesting is that it was based on a true story. It also came out the same year as Soul Surfer, a film about a teenage girl who loses her arm to a shark attack. Most adults wouldn't be able to take this film seriously because it's so cheesy at times, but for kids and animal-lovers it could have quite a large audience.
Sawyer is an 11-year-old boy who is lonely and sad that his beloved cousin Kyle is enrolling in the military. One day he meets a concerned fisherman who has found a bottlenose dolphin with an injured tail (caught in a crab trap), and the two call a rescue team and although Sawyer continues skipping classes to visit the dolphin, his mother notices his bad moods improving and permits him to continue visiting "Winter". Winter's tail has to be amputated but a prosthetic tail is built so Winter can properly swim. Sawyer also takes up volunteering at the local hospital. Meanwhile Kyle becomes depressed, and during a hurricane Winter may have to be euthanized. Can Sawyer save the dolphin from this fate?
Dolphin Tale had some of those "so-fake-sweet-I'm-gonna-puke" moments, along with incredibly dorky moments, but it can hold an audience with its strange originality. The soundtrack wasn't very good but the acting was half-decent and the bottlenose dolphin was pretty cute. What some people may find interesting is that it was based on a true story. It also came out the same year as Soul Surfer, a film about a teenage girl who loses her arm to a shark attack. Most adults wouldn't be able to take this film seriously because it's so cheesy at times, but for kids and animal-lovers it could have quite a large audience.