I love this movie so much it was a child hood classic and always will be

The story concerns an American boy named Cody who now lives in Australia with his guardian Gaza. He sets out with two of his friends to explore a lake that is said to inhabit a mysterious creature known as 'Donkegen'.The opening scene is really well done. The film score is fantastic and the acting gives this film a very realistic feel.Even though it's a kids film, it never plays down to a lower intelligence and understands that a kids film doesn't have to use slang in order to reach it's target audience.I honestly believe in the age of too many video games and TV, this is a great film for young or old. Better to show to young ones in the hopes they understand you can have so much fun by just exploring and creating/building things. Perhaps when they are older they will look back at this film and realize one of it's overall messages.Let's hope for a proper DVD release soon.

I have not seen this in 15 years but it has stayed with me enough to look it up here, (more than you can say for most films aimed at kids.) At the time I think we did watch it hoping it would be another 'Goonies.' What we found was different and slower but still fantastic at inspiring the imagination. Frankly if you found it confusing or overly wordy then you were either very young or pretty dumb. The pragmatic lead kid is sure there must be a rational explanation to an Aboriginal story about a spooky lake. He does indeed discover that the 'donkegine' is really just a donkey engine left at the bottom of the lake (maybe the writer was watching Star Trek the motion picture or something) but he learns about an alternate and interesting culture as well as I suppose grasping that there isn't an answer to everything out there. It's a charming 'coming of age' story that I'd like to see again.

I have not seen this movie in over 10 years, but it must have been good because I still remember it. I saw it when I was 12 and it seemed really cool at the time. The plot didn't seem boring to me, kids looking for a lochness-type monster. Had a lot of dialogue, but good stuff. I remember thinking the young girl in it was so cute. That is the whole reason I looked this movie up, to see what her name was (Rachel Friend). Unfortunately, she never did much else. Anyway, I think pre-teen and young teens would still like this movie.