Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Flipper Blu-ray Movie Review

An average family-friendly remake nets a satisfying Blu-ray release...

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown March 5, 2011

Everyone loves the king of the sea, ever so kind and gentle is he! Tricks he will do when children appear, and how they laugh when he is near! They call him Flipper, Flipper, faster than lightning! No one you see, is smarter than he. And we know Flipper lives in a world full of wonder, flying there...

If you just belted out "under, under the sea," chances are you're old enough to remember watching the original Flipper television series during its initial 1964-67 broadcast run or in syndication in the '70s and '80s. What you may not remember is the 1963 film of the same name that started the five-year friendly dolphin craze. It's this Flipper storytellers Ricou Browning and Jack Cowden mined when developing their mid-90s remake of the same name. The rest of the pieces fell into place. A talented young leading-man-to-be, a grizzled '80s icon (Mick Dundee himself), Jaws cinematographer Bill Butler, equal parts levity and pathos, and accessible family fare kids were bound to love. Unfortunately, the eventual 1996 film's screenwriter and director, Alan Shapiro, wasn't one of those pieces. With just one feature film under his belt (The Crush), Shapiro delivered something more akin to a respectable TV movie than a classic silver-screen family adventure.

"I can't recall the taste of food, nor the sound of wood or touch of grass. No veil between me and the ring of fire."

When teenage troublemaker Sandy Ricks (Elijah Wood, The Lord of the Rings) is sent to spend a summer with his salty, no-nonsense sea-dog of an uncle, Porter (Paul Hogan, Crocodile Dundee), he's... let's just say less than enthusiastic about his new Florida Keys stomping grounds. But then he meets the film's titular king of the sea, a playful bottlenose dolphin who becomes separated from his pod. The dolphin brings out the best in the boy and, over time, Sandy starts to emerge from his angsty cocoon. Other newfound friends help, of course: a young girl named Kim (Jessica Wesson, Casper), a local biologist (Chelsea Field, The Last Boy Scout), her sheepish son Marvin (Jason Fuchs, Holy Rollers) and a stern but patient police officer (the late Isaac Hayes, Hustle & Flow). Sandy has to do more than grow up though. He has to outwit a cruel, heartless fisherman (Jonathan Banks, Breaking Bad), deal with a pair of polluters dumping barrels of toxic waste in the ocean, dodge a vicious hammerhead shark and reunite Flipper with his pod.

If only Flipper were a bigger part of Sandy's coming-of-age adventure. Cramming in an environmentally conscious subplots must have seemed like a good idea to Shapiro at the time. Hey kids, watch as man and dolphin work together to save the planet! But strapping a camera to a dolphin's head to solve a paint-by-numbers eco-mystery wastes more time than it warrants. Eagerly glossing over the dire-economic-straits that propelled the 1963 film along, Shapiro traps Flipper in shallow waters, abandoning the father/son conflict of the original in favor of something far more conventional. Yes, Wood is suitably sullen (even if Sandy is initially a bit too unlikable), Hogan plays the gruff tough-love card with endearing swagger, and Wesson and Fuchs do well with what little Shapiro affords them. Even so, Flipper feels like an afterthought. This is Sandy's movie, his chance to shine. Normally, I wouldn't call that an issue, but in this case, it poses quite a problem: young children will be bored long before the film finds its sea legs and adults will find the whole thing to be too straight-forward, too predictable and far too familiar.

That leaves a narrow window of appeal. Eight to eleven-year olds will get the most out of Flipper -- even though it's still a tad slow to hold their attention through multiple viewings -- but everyone else in the family will check out. The result? Shapiro's film is a decent rainy day rental; one with enough humor and heart to drag a fourth grader to the edge of their seat. Wood's loneliness and insecurities will resonate with many a kid, Hogan's quips will earn a few solid laughs, and Flipper and his fellow wildlife (Scar and Pete the Pelican) keep things light and lively when Sandy's indignation threatens to sink the ship. The animal scenes feel a tad forced and redundant as well, and Shapiro's dialogue doesn't leave his actors with much choice but to overact and overextend. But his cast commits to the cause and keeps his otherwise mediocre script clipping along when all else fails. Again, Flipper isn't a classic by any means, nor will it likely be a household favorite. Pick it up if little else is available, just be prepared to shrug your shoulders when all is said and done.

Flipper Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Flipper's 1080p/VC-1 transfer isn't the sharpest catalog fin slicing through the waves, but it does deliver a clean, colorful, sufficiently faithful presentation worthy of mild praise. To say I was pleasantly surprised would be an understatement. Bill Butler's summery seaside hues are lovely, skintones are fairly natural (even though faces appear muddy every now and then) and black levels dive deep. And detail? Again, we aren't talking about the crispest catalog picture around, but I suspect it's an accurate rendering of Butler's original photography. Edge definition is firm and stable (without the help of any egregious edge enhancement), overall clarity is commendable, the film's tempered grainfield is intact and textures are reliable. Yes, some slight ringing haunts a number of shots, and yes, minor delineation issues come to bear on a trio of poorly lit nighttime scenes. Even so, both problems are minor and neither one proves to be a substantial distraction. Likewise, some negligible wear and tear dots the print, as do bursts of elevated grain, but the technical encode is on point, meaning there isn't any significant artifacting, banding, aliasing or other oddities to deal with. Of all the Universal catalog transfers that made their high definition debut on February 15th, Flipper's faithful presentation is the best of the bunch.

Flipper Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

By source or by way of the mix, Universal's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track isn't quite as impressive as its video transfer. Don't get me wrong though: it still gets the job done. Dialogue is clear and intelligible, effects are crisp and well prioritized, and voices rarely float above the soundfield (when they do, ADR is almost always the culprit). Rear speaker activity is quiet but mischievous, directionality is subdued but playful, and LFE output, though frothy at times, injects some much-needed power into Porter's boat engine, the island's violent storms and the weight of rolling waves. On a less positive note, effects tend to be a tad tinny (sometimes to the point of being brittle) and the soundscape has an artificial air about it. Still, little is out of sorts. Flipper has the unmistakable gait of a modestly budgeted, mid-90s production and Universal's lossless track doesn't depart from it.

Flipper Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Like Univeral's other February 8th catalog releases, Flipper doesn't include a single special feature.

Flipper Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Flipper is too slow for young children, a decent drama for eight to eleven-year-olds and a good choice for families who've exhausted their supply of better family films. Just beware: it's slushy, formulaic and predictable. At least its Blu-ray release has more to offer, namely an unexpectedly strong video transfer and a solid DTS-HD Master Audio track. There aren't any special features to be had, but Flipper fans won't bat an eye.