Water For Elephants

I love circuses. I love trains. I love elephants. Here’s a movie about an elephant on a circus train. What’s not to like? Well, the life on the train can be brutal if it’s run by a psychopathic sadist (Christoph Waitz, once again very good.). I also like Reese Witherspoon. Robert Pattinson left me as unmoved as I was by his performances in the first two of those boring Twilight movies, the only ones I’ve seen or will see. Rosie the elephant was a better actor. The CGI work was very good, too. There is a scene with dozens of wild, dangerous animals running amok through crowds of people. You know it was digital, it would be too dangerous to film it with real animals, but it looks completely real. And you learn some circus lore. Did you know that, to circus people, all elephants are “bulls,” even though they may (like Rosie) actually be cows? All in all, not a great movie but worth seeing.