THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 1, 1995 TAG: 9509010724
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E9 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
IT IS QUESTIONABLE what ``Magic in the Water'' is trying to be. One thing is for sure, though - it is not magic.
It seems to be trying to be ``E.T. Meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers.'' At other moments, it drags in hints of ``One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' (suggesting that insane people are more sane than the sane). This type of recycling is perhaps appropriate for a film that speaks out, eventually, against toxic dumping, but it takes a long time to make its statement.
Mark Harmon plays yet another dad who doesn't have time for his kids. Harmon, even more bland than he was in his TV appearances, plays a radio talk-show psychiatrist from Seattle who takes his teenage son and younger daughter on vacation to a remote lake town in Canada.
The local legend is that a sea creature named Orky hangs about. The image of Orky, a close kin to the Loch Ness monster, stirs the daughter, Ashley (Sarah Wayne). She leaves Oreo cookies on the pier and finds that the vanilla centers have been consumed by morning. It's an obvious rip-off from the Reese's Pieces bit in ``E.T.''
Orky is merely a gleam of light on the water until he-she-it takes over Dad and converts him into a caring, but daffy, type. Dad is ``possessed'' and starts saying things like ``forget everything you think you know - and really look.'' He goes to the local therapy class, led by a pretty doctor.
He also suddenly thinks that you should think with your heart, not your brain, and starts to dig a tunnel to China.
This quirky and dark premise may be going for fantasy, but it's questionable whether either little kids or big kids will sit still for it.
Rick Stevenson, who both directed and co-wrote, isn't sure what he wants to do with the movie. In any case, it's a long wait before we get a look at Orky. It is only a head shot, and a pretty cheap looking one at that.
``Magic in the Water'' is a strange little film that, at the least, is a respite from the overly familiar ``save the creature'' formula that has been repeated often this summer. However, one suspects that the intended audience would prefer a creature they could see and spend more time with. Orky just comes too late, with too little. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
BOB AKESTER/Oxford Film Co.
Dr. Jack Black (Mark Harmon) builds a sandcastle after rediscovering
a youthful outlook.
Graphic
MOVIE REVIEW
``Magic in the Water''
Cast: Mark Harmon, Joshua Jackson, Harley Jane Kozak, Sarah
Wayne
Director: Rick Stevenson
Screenplay: Rick Stevenson and Matthew O'Connor
Music: David Schwartz
MPAA rating: PG (some questionable language but mostly mild)
Mal's rating: One 1/2 stars
Locations: Greenbrier in Chesapeake; Circle 4 in Norfolk;
Columbus, Lynnhaven Mall in Virginia Beach
by CNB