DVDFile

Warner / 113 Minutes / 2011 / Rated PG / Street Date: December 20, 2011

It all begins with a fisherman and a bum crab trap. In beautiful Clearwater, a fisherman brings up his nets to find a dolphin who has been trapped. A young boy named Sawyer (Nathan Gamble) happens to be biking by as this happens, and he and the fisherman both attempt to save the poor dolphin and get help from a nearby Marine Hospital. The dolphin - named "Winter" by marine biologist Clay Haskett's (Harry Connick Jr.'s) daughter - survives, but the poor thing's tail has been seriously damaged.

A Dolphin Tale focuses on Winter's recovery, as well as the possibilities that dolphin prosthetics can offer the creature. But this is a family animal-themed film, remember, so it's not just about the dolphin: In the film, we watch Sawyer go from grumpy, antisocial tween to a positively involved participant in the world around him. In full-throttle Afterschool Special mode, that gimpy porpoise teaches the little dude the true meaning of Christmas.

Buying Harry Connick Jr. as a marine biologist is a tough sell - and Ashley Judd's hyper turn as Sawyer's antic mom doesn't help things, either - but movie like Dolphin Tale don't have to be dramatically realistic in order to have heartstring effect. There isn't a whole lot of filmmaking elegance at hand here, but this is readily compensated for by Morgan Freeman's appearance as a prosthetics master who becomes increasingly eager to help pl' Sawyer out with his endeavor.

The long and the short of it is that with Dolphin Tale, you get what you pay for - no more, no less. This is capable, unassuming melodrama that offers Hallmark Channel plot devices with big-Hollywood cast and budget assets. If you think too much about it or think that the film has anything more than the status quo in mind in terms of emotional appeal, you'll roll your eyes, but if viewers accept Dolphin Tale's cheesy limitations, the damned fish movie just might bring a tear the eye.