The film feels liveliest when considering what happens when scientific research collides with the individual egos and desires of those producing it.
It delivers its metaphors with just enough grace to offset the fact that its titular animal seems hopelessly out of place in a kid’s film.
The transfer makes great use of the left and right speakers whenever water is splashing on screen or Kevin Spacey promises to drown.
Lasse Hallström’s rendering of place and time is quaint and evocative even if the film, as a whole, moves at the speed of a glacial ice flow.