Sammy’s Great Escape (2012)
Duration: 93 minutes
Certified: U
Directed by: Ben Stassen, Vincent Kesteloot
Voices of: Pat Carroll, Carlos McCullers II, Isabelle Furman
KRS release

In 2010, Belgian animated film A Turtle’s Tale: Sammy’s Adventures was a minor hit that struck a chord with young children.

Moulded in the Finding Nemo template, the film took tots to an underwater world and presented them with adventure and a sense of ecological awareness. Sammy’s Great Escape is more of the same and appeals to the same audience.

The storyline is pretty straightforward and very easy to follow for young cinema-goers. It revolves around two leatherback turtles, Sammy and Ray, who spend their time happily taking care of their grandchildren, Ricky and Ella.

All goes well until Sammy and Ray are captured and taken to Dubai to serve as an attraction in an aquarium for the rich and wealthy. Ricky and Ella decide to follow them and help get them back into the wild. Meanwhile, the two leatherbacks gather their friends to plot their own great escape.

The film kicks off – in both content and style – where the first feature had left off two years ago. The animation is colourful and vivid and provides enough of a sugar rush for the youngsters to keep them suitably attentive and entertained, especially if they have already seen the first feature and know the characters.

The film-makers have also infused enough visual elements into the film to coax quite a few laughs and giggles. The underwater world is well recreated with the right mix of cuteness, natural environment and fantastical elements. In fact, the world presented here has quite a unique touch to it, and looks almost like a venture into an alien world.

I am sure this picture will arouse quite a few questions and curiosities among its young audience, so better have a few books handy to answer their queries.

Sammy’s Great Escape does not differ much from the usual Disney feature. However, it can provide added impetus to that much-needed ecological awareness that is sometimes so lacking and that cannot be transmitted from school textbooks.