This is just a good movie. (No intended SPOILERS! but they may follow) Yeah, it can be looked at as a collage of other similar films (Free Willy, King Kong, Mighty Joe Young and even a semi-recent television series - Surface)and that it is. But this is familiar and beloved ground. Not a negative. I'll welcome another installment in this vein anytime. Love 'em. We all return to the genres we love knowing we're, with rare exception, not turning over any new stones. If there is a new stone here, and there is, it is in the animation. Nope, it ain't perfect but "Great Ooogly Moogly" they did get close! It takes very little suspension of disbelief to "buy" Crusoe. Great job to all involved. Kudos, extra kudos. With the "piggy back ride" aside (and removing it would destroy this film), this family film doesn't dumb down. The sub-plots don't feel contrived, all the actors and actresses nail their characters. Even if they are all so very familiar. It just works. It's fun. It accomplishes its purpose. Without breaking ground all involved delivered a worthy film, a collector's DVD for sure. Still ... I yearn for a definitive "Loch Ness" tale. This one isn't it and never intended itself to be. For definitive to date ... you'll have to go to Werner Herzog's (he produced, starred and co-wrote - with Zak Penn who also directed)"Incident at Loch Ness". "Incident" however, didn't have to play it's hand. It didn't have to give whatever the creature of Loch Ness is or isn't, a face. That film took a different concept to run with. "Water Horse" picked its path, from a novel by Dick King-Smith (and a Robert Jacobs screenplay), and did a really good thing. Jay Russell, director, pulled it all together, found the people and the muse to do what is so necessary to take something like this from idea to cinema ... he found the magic. And shared it with us. Cool.