Rating: NR (PG-some marine mammal violence)
Run Time: 1h 28min
Summary(IMDB.com): When a teenaged boy learns that his mother has taken a job on a remote island off mainland Australia, he is shattered that he must leave his friends and girlfriend and come with them. But what begins as the worst experience of his entire life becomes an important journey of discovery, as he learns that he is somehow connected with a mysterious and legendary line of Selkies - people from ancient Scotland who have the power to change into seals.
My Review: While the legend of the selkie is filled with mystery and seduction, this movie was very flat and strange. From plot digressions to getting the difference between a seal and sea lion wrong, Selkie had a lot of issues.
Selkies are a Celtic legend based around seals, who called the cold waters home; not sea lions, who prefer warmer waters. During the underwater scenes, a poorly-made animation sea lion was used, which doesn't make sense. However, the movie did provide gorgeous underwater scenes of graceful sea lions surfing in the currents of the sea.
The main character of this selkie story, Jamie, doesn't seem worried about his new aquatic features, such as his webbed hands. As a viewer, I wanted to know how long this was happening, and how does his family not see these changes? Additionally, the transformation scenes were bland and lacked the major element of selkie lore; the seal skin! As soon as Jamie is in the water, he turns into a sea lion. How does this transformation magically happen? When did it start happening? More unanswered questions left me frustrated. I also found it puzzling that the transformation on land was more magical than the underwater counterpart.
While the main character struggles with his identity as a magical sea creature, he makes a sudden and very abrupt change in his demeanor by finally accepting his gift. What was the point of this entire movie if the plot revolved around him trying to fix his family's curse and then accept it? Other random events happen in the plot, such as the family finding a random stray dog that later gets sick and has to be euthanized.
The only aspect of this movie that I did enjoy was how it discussed current marine conservation issues, such as trawling, illegal capture of wildlife, and dolphin slaughter. Because of these scenes, I would recommend that younger children don't watch this movie.
Unfortunately, this movie had no cohesive plot, a lot of digressions, and unanswered questions. I give this movie (*) 1 star.
-Sirenita The Selkie