Seal Team Parent Guide

Life’s hard when you’re prey. Hope is in short supply for the seals of the Cape of Good Hope, thanks to the ravenous sharks who hunt them. The seals are scared, hungry, and don’t see any way to change their deadly predicament.

The situation only alters when seals Quin and Benji head out one evening to find food. After a particularly malevolent shark named Grimes finds Benji, Quin decides that it’s time to turn the tables on the sharks and give seals the freedom of the seas. To reach his goal, he’s going to have to find friends who are “brave, stupid, or crazy” enough to join forces. Gradually he assembles a crew of seals, dolphins, seagulls, and other maritime creatures determined to hand the sharks a rare but necessary defeat.

Seal Team is an animated Netflix production that does what it’s supposed to do: amuse children while delivering some positive messages. Adults are unlikely to be entertained since the plot is predictable, the jokes waterlogged, and the animation subpar (don’t get me started on how weird and awkward the seals’ fins look). None of that matters because the audience is elementary school aged kids, who will probably find this movie both funny and exciting. I wouldn’t recommend showing it to preschoolers: there’s a fair bit of glorified violence, several scenes of threat and menace, and the off-screen death of a main character. That said, youngsters who happily watch Disney’s animated offerings will do just fine with this one.

Parents shouldn’t make the mistake of comparing Seal Team with Disney productions in any other way. It’s not smart, the soundtrack is forgettable, and it lacks the magic that transforms a kids’ film into a classic like The Incredibles or The Little Mermaid. This is a serviceable piece of family film-making and it delivers message about teamwork, admitting mistakes, apologizing, having courage, and the importance of making plans. The latter message might be appreciated by parents trying to get kids to set goals and follow schedules.

Seal Team might be swimming a direct course to mediocrity, but at least it avoids a shipwreck into full blown disaster. If parents are okay with the frequent scenes of combat and some “unstable, experimental biotech weapons”, this movie will let kids float away to an imaginary world for 100 minutes of underwater make believe.