Guillermo del Toro’s movie “The Shape of Water” is a turgid tale of government stupidity shot through with an interspecies affair of the heart that conjured up Disney’s animated romance “Beauty and the Beast.” If you substitute the self-important Washington types in Del Toro’s drama with the swaggering Gaston in the Disney animation and replace the sea creature that is the love interest in that drama with the object of affection in the animation, you know this movie by heart. And if you’re like me, you prefer the cartoon version.

You call this a performance?

You’re probably not like me given all the awards and nominations bestowed on this movie, including the Golden Globe nominations and the Critics’ Choice nominations for best picture, best director, best actress, and best sci-fi/horror film. Not only don’t I get what all the fuss is about, I also am scratching my head over the accolades for the performance of the female lead, played by British actress Sally Hawkins. Admittedly, she has a tough role because her character is mute, so she needs to reflect all her state of mind on her face. Yet what you see is a poker-face throughout, even in her sex scene with the amphibian that, by the way, comes off as human except for his fish-scaled skin.

Just imagine a cross between Marvel Comics’ Black Panther, the Hulk, and Spider-Man and you’ll get the picture.

The naked truth

Another false note in this movie is the gratuitous nudity. OK, sure, when she and the sea creature are intimate, she needs to be naked. But even before they ever meet, when she’s alone at home readying to go to work, we see her taking a bath, which serves no purpose in moving the story along except to make frontal nudity part of the plot.

That said, more than 200 reviews recommend this movie – 93 percent in the plus column, according to Rotten Tomatoes, so feel free to counter my arguments. You have the majority of the critics behind you. Let the brickbats fly.

What’s Trump doing here?

Wait, there’s something else that goes with this movie “The Shape of Water” – oddly it’s Donald Trump.

I didn’t set out to write about him again, not today, anyway, but an action he plans on taking ties to underwater life. As the Guardian reported on Jan. 2, he wants to rid the seas of marine life protection against over-fishing. George W. Bush had set up the safeguards in the central Pacific and Barack Obama expanded them. The Fish & Wildlife Service contends that without this sheltering, many species will disappear from planet earth. We’re talking about giving creatures of the deep - dolphins, whales, sea turtles and, dare I say, amphibians like the one in Del Toro’s movie - a chance to replenish their breeds, Trump doesn’t see the point. So much for making America great again.
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