Reviews & Ratings for
Dot and the Whale (1986)

Following the borderline silliness of Dot and Keeto comes a sequel that shares the artistic style and fantasy elements of the same film, but retains the grit of Dot and the Bunny with a helping of Kangaroo. Aside from being a long anti-whaling PSA for families, it's a Dot film that surprisingly stands out from the rest.

The first film to make Dot a more social person, being more inclusive with friendship around characters other than kangaroos, and not to recycle anything from the previous entries, some of its animations and live-action underwater footage match quite poorly, but it still provides some of the most gorgeous visuals in the entire series, a couple of songs beautifully sung by Kim Deacon and some of the darkest elements besides its central theme to ever turn up in a Dot film, including suicide; the titular, suicidal whale leaves a puddle of blood in one shot only.

Given the power to breathe underwater and communicate with undersea life through magic, because gills would be freaky, the other titular character is especially put in so much peril for a film of hers as she tries to survive the bottom of the ocean that it almost becomes the death of Dot as we know her. If they aren't too traumatised by its subject matter or what goes on, it's an obviously flawed but overall nice alternative for children if you don't want them to think about watching Blackfish. Besides, it's a lot better than Free Willy.