Over the year’s, particularly since Ferngully: The Last Rainforest (1992) there have been many eco animated family films aimed at the next generation of kid’s growing up and most of them ram the message home with a sledgehammer; even some of the better quality Studio Ghibli films from Japan send a strong and far from subtle message how bad man is for the environment. For most of these films this the drving message is that man is destroying the planet. And while the message might be a noble one they do leave a usually leave sour taste in the mouth.
The latest offering is no exception – a French/Belgian co-production that has been dubbed into both an English-English and American-English for whichever country is relevant. Directed by Ben Stassen and written by Dominic Paris who had previously made Fly Me to the Moon (2008), this is time they also overdo the 3-D effects and like many recent films they try to mask the films shortcomings with an overdose of using the 3-D tehnique (the film is released on DVD in both 2-D and 3-D formats). Unlike other more successful films such as Toy Story 3 (2010) in which the technique is used to enhance the film experience, this one has an over reliance on it.
The story is about a little turtle that is born and in his struggle to get to the sea he is instantly under attack from seagulls and becomes immediately attracted to another turtle called Shelly who he initially believes is eaten by a seagull. Once he comes too after surviving the ravenous seagulls he finds himself afloat on a raft and facing an onslaught from reluctantly hungry fish but finds his biggest perils apart from fish and birds is man. He must tackle oil slicks, plastic bags and illegal whalers while also befriending a cat belonging to some hippy eco warriors humans before being reunited with Shelly. The story is narrated by an older Sammy (spoken by John Hurt) whos adventures we follow since he was born in 1959 and we are given his age through his adventures as he makes his way across the Pacific by the music soundtrack by the likes of Donovan and the Mamas and Papas.
It is, like Finding Nemo (2004) the underwater sequences that work the best as we entreated to the blast of colour of the underwater fish and coral reefs, but curiously the voice overs for the American and English versions are narrated by different voices, one suspects so that they do not sound so annoying to the different audiences. John Hurt narrates the voice of the older Sammy, as already mentioned while in the US version it is that of Stacey Keach. The end result of A Turtle’s Tale: Sammy’s Adventure (released in the US as Sammy’s Adventures: The Secret Passage) is a cutesy all too mild mannered children’s family film that adds little to the recent cycle of animated CGI movies about talking animals.
Chris Hick