The Legend of Ochi

Rated PG • Theaters

The Legend of Ochi feels like a modern fairy tale, albeit more akin to the Grimm variety than the Disney.

Eastern European culture informs this film where the action takes place on the fictional island of Carpathia. It’s not clear if this place is meant to be ­mythical or what’s left of the Carpathian Mountains after a postapocalyptic rise in sea levels.

The inhabitants of the island live in fear of the Ochi, wild creatures living in the forests that look like a cross between monkeys and bears. Yuri (Helena Zengel) is the teenage daughter of Maxim (Willem Dafoe), the island’s chief Ochi hunter. One night, Yuri finds a cute baby Ochi separated from its family, and she decides to defy her father and embark on a quest to reunite the small creature with its clan.

From a technical standpoint, the film is a triumph. It features beautiful cinematography, much of which was filmed on location in Romania. Even more impressive are the special effects. Filmmaker Isaiah Saxon eschewed computer-generated imagery and instead relied primarily on old-school puppetry to bring the Ochi to life. The technique has more constraints than CGI, but it lends the mythical creatures an aura of authenticity.

The effects aren’t the only aspect that pays homage to the family movies of yesteryear. The film’s time period might be indeterminate, but its overall vibe owes an exceedingly large debt to the family movies of the 1980s. Yet while the atmospherics mimic classics like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and The Goonies, The Legend of Ochi’s script lacks the same sparkle and humor.

It’s also too bad that the film imitates its 1980s forebears by including a couple of instances of strong language unsuitable for its PG rating.