CINEMA: GO FISH

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You may think you've seen this film before, a few years ago, when it was called Free Willy, and you dozed in your seat as your child sat rapt in communion with a lonely lad and his pet whale. Now it's Flipper, a remake of the 1963 film that spawned two sequels and a TV series. But it's still the same primal kitsch: boy finds dolphin, boy loves dolphin, adults wonder what's the big deal with the boy and his dolphin. Jeez! Adults don't understand anything.

In director Alan Shapiro's script, Sandy (Elijah Wood) is a virtual orphan, with his generation's patented passive insolence, who is exiled to the Bahamas to live with his beach-bum uncle Porter (Paul Hogan). Sandy meets Flipper the dolphin and slowly opens up. The bad guys try to kill Flipper, and...Hands, class! Who wants to finish this plot synopsis for me?

In this sort of elegiac kids' film, sex is verboten--except in the relationship of the boy and his dolphin, silhouetted like lovers against the setting sun. Sandy has one underwater swimming-and-petting scene with Flipper that may be the most sensuous movie aquacade since Brooke Shields and Chris Atkins went skinny-dipping in The Blue Lagoon. Yet for all the cornography, Flipper has its tugs and charms. This modest movie is about not much more than teaching kids to care for animals and, occasionally, for grownups.

But the dolphin has the best part. As operated by animatronics ace Walt Conti, Flipper is a cool dude. He moonwalks on water and gets great vertical extension on his leaps. And with his soulful stare and plangent "voice," Flipper has a star movie animal's emotional intensity. He gives good heart.

--By Richard Corliss