Das Wunder von Loch Ness (2008)

Eleven-year-old Tim Bender is, much to his mother Anna’s dismay, unlike other boys his age. He isn’t very interested in soccer, has no friends, and would rather do his mother’s tax return in his free time. She works as a marine biologist and raised Tim on her own. Tim has never met his father, whom Anna says was named Dave Brubeck and died while diving off Borneo before Tim was born. Tim tries in vain to set his mother up with other men so he can get a new father. One day, Tim sees the man he believes to be his dead father in a documentary about Loch Ness and the legendary creature Nessie. But the man’s name is not Dave Brubeck; he is Erik Winter, a professor and head of the research team trying to find the lake monster near Inverness. With his crazy grandfather covering for him, Tim empties his piggy bank and flies to Inverness alone. A taxi driver, who later turns out to be the wizard Merlin, takes him to Erik Winter’s research team. Erik is busy, however, so Tim pretends to be a student newspaper editor who wants to interview him. Tim goes out onto the lake with Erik. What Erik doesn’t know is that Paul and Sheila, members of his research team, are cheating. They want to find Nessie and the lake’s legendary treasure for themselves, and have withheld important diving equipment from Erik, without which he can’t continue his work. The two go diving alone and eventually see the lake monster. Paul shoots at it, but it swims on. It collides with Erik’s boat, and Tim falls overboard. Erik begins a large-scale search for Tim with his colleagues. Tim sinks into the lake, but soon wakes up in an underground cave. There, he sees Nessie in an underground lake and meets Oki, a gnome-like 603-year-old druid who has devoted his life to guarding the Stone of the Druids. The stone grants great power to whoever holds it. Oki and Tim become friends, and a little later the druid takes the boy back to the research team. Before they part, Oki gives Tim a precious bracelet. Using the transmitter that remained attached to Nessie when it was shot, Sheila and Paul have worked out that the lake monster must live in a vast rocky mountain range. Paul fires at the rock, and a fine crack appears, through which water runs into Oki’s cave. Oki uses a spell to seal the crack, but now knows he must take the precious stone somewhere safe. Because his eyesight is poor and the route to the altar where the stone must be placed is full of dangers, he asks Tim to help him. By now, Tim’s mother Anna has learned where he is and has come to Loch Ness, where she meets Erik, her former boyfriend. Erik believes Anna quickly found comfort with someone else after their relationship ended, and that Tim was born from that relationship. Paul, meanwhile, has spotted the precious bracelet on Tim and realizes the boy knows the entrance to the secret cave. He tries to kidnap Tim, but Oki gets there first: he pulls Tim into a cave that closes behind them. Erik and Anna manage to open the cave by chance. With a loaded pistol, Paul forces them to follow him after the boy and Oki. On their way to the altar, Tim and Oki pass through various doors into enchanted places, including the Valley of Death, where the air is poisonous, and a forest where every loud noise provokes attacks from nowhere. In the forest, Anna and Erik escape their captor Paul when his gunshots anger the forest and plants bind him. Tim and Oki reach the altar and, with the help of a spell, place the Stone of the Druids there. The stone is safe now. Anna and Erik arrive at the altar, but Paul has followed them. He demands that Tim tell him the way to the cave, and Erik, who by now knows Tim is his son, attacks Paul. A shot goes off in the struggle, and Erik falls. He dies in Anna and Tim’s arms, and Paul flees. At Tim’s request, Oki uses his life force for Erik, who comes back to life. Merlin explains to Oki that his life will now end after this night, but Oki has no regrets. That evening, he shows Tim Nessie in his cave; in reality, she is a robotic decoy. She was used to keep people away from the Stone of the Druids. At the end, Tim, Anna, and Erik leave Loch Ness together. They intend to live as a family from then on.