The Water Man

This was a good movie with a good message. It's geared for a younger/family audience but that's not a bad thing. The movie has a point at the end of it and that's better than most movies these days. Worth watching in my opinion.

In the small town of Pine Mills, Oregon, there is a local legend about a mysterious figure called The Water Man. Gunner Boone is obsessed with death and draws his comic book. His father Amos (David Oyelowo) is often absent and is struggling to reconnect with Gunner. His mom Mary (Rosario Dawson) is sick and his parents are trying to keep it from him. Jim Bussey (Alfred Molina) tells him about The Water Man who may have discovered immortality. He goes searching with help from blue-haired girl Jo who tells stories to little kids for money.

This is David Oyelowo trying his hand at directing. It's fine. It's not anything special but I'm not going to trash it either. It reminds me of Forest Whitaker who also dabbles in directing. There is always the possibility of improvement and I look forward to it. I find this film a little flat. The action scenes need some more kinetic energy. The climax is a little bit anti-climatic. The story is relatively straight forward with the gentlest of twists and turns. All in all, this is professional work for Oyelowo's first effort.

This is basically a Disney-like story with a dying parent, an innocent child on a quest, and a strong morale towards the end. People here are harsh in their reviews, but it's a nice sunday night movie for 8 year olds. My kids weren't too bothered by the slight plot holes, but liked the adventure, the idea of the water man and what he turns out to be.

We have two children, ages 7 and 11, and am always looking for PG (not PG-13) rated family movies.

I was drawn to this movie because the actors, and they were fabulous.

I thought the violence at the end/climax should be less for PG, but other than that, I was really happy with this movie.

Thank God someone is still trying to make good PG movies!

In this film the story develops a reflection on how we see death and what we think when we know that someone important to us is going to die.

With a pretty good script, it manages to tell us the story in a subtle way, with an unexpected outcome, it manages to expose the message of taking advantage of the time we have to be with the people we love. It has good acting, good visuals, good photography, and good character development. Although the way the story is told may seem a bit slow, it works to understand what each of the characters feel without falling into cheap sentimentality.

With some situations that happen at the precise moment, the film has a good balance between comedy, drama and fantasy, this film is worth seeing.