Beneath Loch Ness: Too much Loch, not enough Ness

Objects in graphic are smaller than they appear...

This is a little movie with the occasional big graphic that could have been great, but isn't. It starts off with an older professor searching for Nessie when something happens, and he mysteriously vanishes into the cold waters, never to be found. Flash to an office where a woman, Elizabeth, is convincing her boss that this is something that can be made into a great story for their network, albeit one exploiting a man's death, and the story is set up. Sort of.

Flash to a desert where the deceased professor's protege, Case, is working. He gets called in to finish up the research, so he heads to Scotland. Okay, so now the story is set up. Sort of.

Case gets to Scotland in time for the memorial service, to have confrontations with the rest of the team, and to state that he doesn't believe in the Loch Ness Monster. But he's going to take charge anyway. Then we go around and around for a bit until we end up with Elizabeth showing up to take over, a few sightings of the big beastie, a sighting of a little beastie, some eggs, some diving footage, and a Scottish native dressing up like Braveheart to take it on.

The plot is all over the place, not even good enough to be B-quality. The characters are at least interesting, if not consistent, and there's a lot of fun dialogue bandied about. When we finally see Nessie, it's at least impressive, but those shots are few and far between. At the end, I still couldn't say what the whole thing was supposed to be about. I think the writers wanted to go for a Discovery Channel type tale, then realized that would be too boring, so they threw in random character conflicts to spice it up. If they hadn't skimped on the graphics of Nessie so much, this would have been a lot better. Remember kids, never, ever skimp on the monster!

Nevertheless, inconsistent writing and plot aside, this was still entertaining. Little things like the Braveheart makeup and one of the characters (and potential Nessie snacks) walking around in a t-shirt with a bulls eye on it gave me the giggles I need to call this one watchable. I wouldn't buy the DVD, but if it happens to air again, it's not one I'll rush to turn off. That's as glowing a recommendation as I can plumb up from the depths, so it will have to do.