Sandy Ricks (Elijah Wood), a young Chicago teenager, has difficulty adjusting after his parents' divorce. Thinking a vacation will help, his mother sends him to spend the summer with his uncle (Paul Hogan) in the Florida Keys. When he arrives, Ricks has nothing but a bad attitude until a chance encounter with the playful dolphin Flipper and a neighborhood girl (Jessica Wesson) snap him out of it. However, Flipper's life is soon in danger when someone starts dumping toxic waste in the ocean.