Sammy's adventures

Belgian producer-director Ben Stassen specialises in making movies for IMAX and 3D screens. A few shorts led to his first feature-length animation, the little-seen Fly Me To the Moon 3D (2008), which was followed in 2010 by Sammy's Adventures: The Secret Passage, whose English-language version was released in the UK in 2011 with new British voices. It hasn't gained American distribution despite also being given new voices for that market (including Melanie Griffith and Ed Begley Jr).

Sammy, a green turtle (Dominic Cooper) is born, meets and accidentally rescues the love of his life (Gemma Arterton), meets and accidentally loses a hyper-talkative life-long friend hatched on the same day, and travels the world encountering all manner of evil and foolish man-made disasters. As a 50-year-old grandfather, Sammy is a wise old turtle (John Hurt) teaching his next generation to put its best flipper forwards.

Presumably designed to be acceptable eco-entertainment for school parties in the USA, the agents and vessels of human wrong-doing sport English-language names (signposting oil spills, plastic flotsam, whalers, sewage). By contrast, the unpolluted oceans provide gloriously coloured images of marine paradises, decked with dazzling coral and tropical fish.

Sammy pals up with various fauna on his way to the end of the eco-fable, which is a bland statement that humans will have to do more to help turtles survive. The kindergarten style of the screenplay is highlighted by the frequent fading to black between episodes illustrating this or that aspect of mankind's ecological sins. This is a hi-tech 3D slide show.

The lack of a driving narrative flow and strong characterisations is excusable if the movie is viewed simply as a meaningfully pretty lesson for young children. Its 3D setpieces are enjoyable conceits even in 2D, and the CGI craftsmanship is admirable in the animators' usual testing areas of water and shadow effects and movements.

However, inevitable comparison with Pixar's Finding Nemo is not so favourable for Stassen's team's dramatic skills. There was just one noticeable improvement, to my ears: the non-presence of the whining voice of klutzy Albert Brooks as the tedious voice of Nemo's father.