Flipper

I was rather appalled to see the low rating this movie received here, personally considering it fun family fare. It revolves around a young teenager, Sandy Ricks, who is sent by his mom to Coral Key to spend the summer with his Uncle Porter. While there he befriends a dolphin named Flipper. Lots of adventures ensue amid the predictable nephew / uncle bonding as well as a little romance for Sandy with a local girl.

I'm a great Crocodile Dundee fan myself so absolutely loved Paul Hogan in his role as crusty and comical Uncle Porter. For starters, he keeps an endless stock of Spaghetti-O's in his house to serve as his usual meal, heated with a blowtorch! Elija Wood, Frodo from The Lord of the Rings, appeared quite competent playing the young Sandy, a boy at first none too fond of his forced summer vacation locale.

Of course the dolphin is magnificent and there are some wonderful underwater scenes. Set in the Florida Keys, it was apparently filmed in the Bahamas. This adaptation of Flipper makes great family entertainment, a sweet, sentimental, and fun movie that is infinitely superior to many of the cinematic offerings for youngsters nowadays.

This is a feel-good family film that very much follows the heart-warming and fun adventure elements of the 1960s Flipper TV-series. It involves teenager Sandy Ricks (Elijah Wood), who is sent by his mom to live in the Coral Key with his Uncle Porter Ricks (Paul Hogan). At first, Sandy wasn't too keen on his new home, but that soon changes when meets a dolphin named Flipper. This friendship leads to a stronger relationship between uncle and nephew fascinating adventures for Sandy.

As Paul Hogan hasn't done much films since his Crocodile Dundee days, it was great seeing him in the Porter Ticks role, in which I think he gave a comical yet touching performance. Elijah Wood did a nice job portraying Sandy Ricks, and he has a touching on-screen chemistry with the wonderful dolphin. Luke Halpin, the original Sandy Ricks from the TV-series, plays one of the bounty fisherman in the movie. The story is a little slow at times, but the fun dolphin adventures make up for it.

The oceanside scenery is breath-taking and beautiful, reminding you of a care-free, relaxing and therapeutic atmosphere. Overall, it is a heart-warming and innocent film that is great for the entire family and a great substitute to many of the over-the-top action and teen-flick nonsense youngsters endure.

Grade B

Flipper is a good movie that you can just sit down and watch with the little ones without having to worry about shielding their eyes at any point during it. Sure it's a bit cheesey at times and the writing is not on scale with an actor of Elijah Wood's caliber, but it is an entertaining film to watch and it's nice to see him playing a somewhat normal teenager. His character Sandy does lean towards the overly obnoxious side of things in the beginning though. So much so that you know if you were in the uncle's place, you'd take him out for a midnight ocean ride and not return with him.

Flipper is a nice heartwarming movie for whole family. It's obviously not a great movie, Free Willy looks much better almost in every component of film making. Possibly, at times it becomes a bit naive , and the writing and the script are not the best part of the movie, but it's a entertaining film with very good cinematography (including underwater shots) and some important moral messages. Elijah Wood proves himself one more time as an incredibly talented and underrated actor. He can make bad movie watchable, okay movie - good, good - great and great movie becomes all time classic. Paul Hogan performance also was very good and he is completely fit to his role. As I already say above, whole cinematography was very good. But underwater shots definitely is the best parts. So Flipper is a perfect way if you want to see nice, sweet and entertaining movie. If you like me become sick and tired of modern Hollywood trash, filled with sex, violence, vulgarity and profanity you most likely would like this movie.

My rating: 7,7 out of 10. Feel free for mailing me about any of my comments and posts here.

Sorry for my bad English.

well! its just finished on channel 4 about an hour ago! it was cool, better than free willy i have to say! ermm what to say...kids wud deffo like this film, the only fault is that it didnt show the rhcp's concert!! was lookin forward to seeing that when it was mentioned however...:P:P dont rent it wait for it to come on the television - pretty good acting ttfn xx