By Sabrina Cognata
Someone answer me this, why in the hell is it that stupid children’s movies always have stupidly long titles that do nothing but make the movie sound even dumber? I honestly have no idea why children’s flicks always do that—it doesn’t make the movie sound smart or even more appealing, just dumber than first expected. Whatever, this movie is basically the retelling of E.T. but poorly, and with a mythical creature instead of an alien. I guess we’re all on the same page now, awesome.
Two things save this movie: Ben Chaplin being hot as hell and the English bulldog called Churchill. Hot men and English Bulldogs are near and dear to my heart though since I love good-looking guys and my very own English bulldog greatly. This isn’t making a lot of sense, I can tell, so I’ll get to it and explain why this movie is dumb, but still cute.
This is the story of Angus MacMarrow (Alex Etel). You meet him as an old man (Brian Cox) in a pub where he tells two stupid American tourists the story of the Lochness monster and the lack of legitimacy in the supposed picture taken of it, but the fact that it is very real. The story starts with Angus being super afraid of the ocean, but fiddling around in the tide pools and finding a strange looking egg thing. His mother, Anne (Emily Watson), sneaks up and starts bitching at him about taking too long or something and you want to swat her aside the head with a 2x4 and hope she shuts up. Back at the house Angus cracks open the egg and inside is a Loch Ness monster, only Angus doesn’t know what it is so he works to befriend it, storing it in his father’s workshop.
Quickly he find out that Angus’s father is dead and his mother hasn’t told him yet. In the middle of the Loch Ness chaos and the dead father chaos a brigade of soldiers shows up and says they have the right to use the property his mother has been keeping up for the owners. The man in charge of the soldiers, Captain Hamilton (David Morrissey) knows that Anne is a widower and immediately starts flirting with her and trying to impress her. Angus goes about hiding the monster and he decides to call it Caruso. A mysterious and hot handy man shows up, Mowbray (Ben Chaplin) and he is HOT.
Basically, like most movies directed towards children Caruso gets into all sorts of hijinx with the adorable English bulldog and Angus begins to get into a lot of trouble. Mawbray is the adult character that Angus and his sister decide to entrust with the truth about Caruso and Mawbray sheds some light and facts about Loch Ness monsters. Mowbray eventually coaxes Angus into setting Caruso free into the Loch close to the house because he is too big and too troublesome to take care of. A group of the soldiers take notice and realize that Caruso is in the Loch and decide to go hunting and kill Caruso. Angus and Mawbray try to save Caruso but they cannot control him because he is a wild and mysterious creature. Finally, Angus bids his friend farewell, and Caruso destroys the net keeping him in the Loch and goes out into the sea. Angus never sees him again, but their connection remains strong well into the winter of Angus’s life—we realize this as old man Angus finishes his story and reveals his actual identity.
