RIVERDANCE: THE ANIMATED ADVENTURE

Name: RIVERDANCE: THE ANIMATED ADVENTURE
Item: RIVERDANCE: THE ANIMATED ADVENTURE
Author: Tess Farrand

"Light Overcomes the Dark"

Family Content: -3 Excessive sex, violence, immorality, and/or worldview problems. (Sometimes excessive content such as violence is in otherwise redemptive movies.)

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

Credits →

What You Need To Know:

RIVERDANCE: THE ANIMATED ADVENTURE is an animated movie streaming on Netflix. An Irish boy named Keegan and a Spanish girl named Moya journey into a magical world. Keegan and his grandfather’s job was to light a lighthouse that was said to keep away an evil huntsman. However, after his grandfather dies, Keegan doesn’t want to believe the ancient stories about magic, light and darkness. Moya convinces him to find the King of the Irish Elk. However, Keegan forgets to light the lighthouse. This puts everyone’s safety in jeopardy.

RIVERDANCE is an upbeat adventure, set on St. Patrick’s day with lively music and dancing. Regrettably, it focuses on the Celtic folklore surrounding Riverdance instead of Ireland’s rich Christian history. The movie stresses that the dancing celebrates the river, which creates and sustains life. It has a pagan, occult worldview where the King of the magical Irish Elk keeps the river’s water running. RIVERDANCE does have some morally uplifting, redeeming elements, however. It stresses how to handle loss, sacrificial love, friendship, and the power of light to overcome darkness. RIVERDANCE is excessive but not abhorrent.

Content:

(PaPa, OO, EE, BB, C, V, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong pagan, occult worldview, with an environmentalist subtext, celebrates the Irish tradition of Riverdance to thank a river, instead of God, for creating and sustaining life and includes magical elements such as the King of the Irish Elk keeps the water in the river running and creating life, but this is mitigated by some strong biblical, redemptive content such as light overcoming darkness, sacrificial love and courage

Foul Language:

No foul language, one brief OMG, some rude name-calling

Violence:

While there is no blood or gore, the movie does contain scenes of peril, an Irish Elk sacrifices himself and is shot off-screen, another Elk gets his antlers shot off, the evil huntsman could scare younger viewers, a boy deals with the loss of his grandfather, there is a funeral scene

Sex:

No sex

Nudity:

No nudity Alcohol Use/Abuse: No alcohol is drunk, but a liquid that could be beer is poured into the river

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No drugs or smoking;

Miscellaneous Immorality:

The pagan worldview plays a major role in the movie’s character motivations and plot.

More Detail:

RIVERDANCE: THE ANIMATED ADVENTURE is a celebration of the Irish Riverdance celebration, in a story about an Irish boy and a Spanish girl who journey into a mythical world where magical elks teach the children the meaning of Riverdance and how to celebrate life through dance. RIVERDANCE is an upbeat adventure, set on St. Patrick’s day with lively music and dancing and some moral, redemptive content extolling sacrificial love, courage and light overcoming darkness, but the movie has a pagan, occult worldview where the King of the magical Irish Elk keeps the water in the river running to create and sustain life.

The story in RIVERDANCE follows the life of a young Irish boy named Keegan who lives with his grandparents on the coast of Ireland. His grandfather is a lighthouse keeper who teaches Keegan everything he knows.

Aside from his grandfather’s skill as a dancer and a hurler, he also tells Keegan about the importance of keeping the lighthouse lit so that evil, dark huntsman can’t reach the land and kill the Irish Elk who keep the rivers flowing.

Keegan is skeptical of the stories but loves his grandparents. One day, his grandfather dies of old age, and it becomes his responsibility to care for the lighthouse. Keegan doesn’t believe in his grandfather’s stories, however, and doesn’t want to take on the mantle.

His best friend, Moya, is from Spain but is skilled in Riverdance. After his grandfather’s death, Moya invites Keegan to meet her at a waterfall. Keegan reluctantly agrees. To Keegan’s surprise, Moya knocks him into the river and tells him to let it carry him to the end. Keegan realizes he’s in a magical land when it appears that Moya can dance on water.

When Keegan wakes up the next morning, he’s surprised by Irish Elk with ornate antlers. Keegan discovers that what he thought was a myth is actually real. He also finds out that the King of the Irish Elk keeps the water in the river running and creating life.

The elk king wants to help Keegan overcome his grief and decides to show him his grandfather’s spirit at the age of the island. However, Keegan’s failure to light the lighthouse not only could jeopardize him seeing his grandfather again but also the safety of the Elk and everyone in his town. Keegan must gather the courage to take up his role as lightkeeper and fight off the darkness of the huntsman to keep those he loves safe.

Streaming on Netflix, RIVERDANCE is an upbeat adventure, set on St. Patrick’s day with lively music and dancing. Regrettably, as the title suggests, the movie focuses on the Celtic folklore surrounding Riverdance instead of Ireland’s rich Christian history. The movie stresses that the dancing is in celebration of the river creating and sustaining life. It has a pagan, occult worldview where the King of the magical Irish Elk keeps the river’s water running. RIVERDANCE does have some morally uplifting, redeeming elements, however. It stresses how to handle loss, sacrificial love, friendship, and the power of light to overcome darkness. RIVERDANCE is excessive but not abhorrent.