Katak, the Brave Beluga Parent Guide

Katak (Alexandre Bacon), a curious young beluga whale, still has his grey infant color, while all his peers have turned white. Determined not to let his delayed development slow him down, Katak sets out on a perilous journey to the Arctic to fulfill his ailing grandmother’s last wish.

Sometimes a film comes along that is so bland, so boring, so beyond explanation that I enter a mental state outside of time and space only to emerge, blinking in the bright lights of the theater lobby, unsure of where I am or how much time has passed. That was my experience today. I have never seen a theater full of kids as restless as our fellow audience. Kids were walking around, talking, and just generally fidgeting. I don’t mean that the children were badly behaved; they were just all bored. If you can’t keep young children entertained in a theater, you have no business making movies for kids.

I almost feel like critiquing this film is a cheap shot: it doesn’t stand a chance. But I will. For art’s sake. On a fundamental level, the story structure makes no sense. And I’m being kind by saying there is a story structure. This “story” feels more like a barely connected string of vignettes with no rhyme nor reason relating to the events that take place. The peril is extremely manufactured to the point that I could probably fit an elephant through the plot holes. The screenwriters set up a mystery in the beginning that is never actually solved even though it’s supposedly a big deal. There is zero sense of distance or scale to be found. Characters travel all day, but then are caught up to by other characters who just left the original spot within a matter of minutes.

The one positive aspect to this production is there is almost no negative content to speak of, aside from some mild peril and name calling. But that’s not enough to make this worth your time. There are some general positive messages around being courageous and not judging by appearances, but they’re not strong enough to make up for the film’s multitudinous flaws. I appreciate the effort by a small Quebec-based studio, but I can’t recommend that’s incapable of keeping preschoolers entertained for 80 minutes. A cardboard box can do that – and it’s cheaper and quieter.