Director Jay Russell stated, "If they asked me to make it talk I would have been off the project." And full marks to him for not disneyfying the characters of this charming film.
The film tackles difficult subjects such as loneliness and bereavement extremely well, and makes a very believable fantasy, but there are flaws, mostly fundamental goofs and an irritating opening. It may seem petty bringing these up, but the rest of the film being so good these are disappointing.
Goofs, The film is kicked off by two students looking at what is a world famous fake photo widely known to come from a decade before this film was set.
The plot of the film is that an egg is laid in a tidal pool in loch Ness, where later the Brits set up Submarine defences. Loch Ness is a non tidal fresh water loch 12 km from the sea, which has only been attached to the sea by rivers for the past several millennia.
For me the opening undermined the importance of the story of the film. Where Angus retells his tale to two complete strangers, simply because they were looking at a fake photo in a pub that 100 people a day look at and question. It would have been nice to see a deeper reason for Angus to share his legend.
You may say "So what, this is a fantasy" But the rest of this film is so good and so much effort has been made to make it 'believable' I am disappointed more effort was not made to entwine the story into the real world better.