Customer Reviews

Fishtales

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There's lots of mermaid movies these days. We rented this one with Ariel's new cartoon, and the kids loved it. The premise: a American professor, a classicist, at Oxford is sent on a leave of absense to a romantic, Greek island to complete his research or lose his position. His young daughter accompanies him, and as is in most of these tales, Mama is deceased. But they love each other and have lots of fun wherever they go(some similarites to "Nim's Island"). On the island, the daughter is befriended by a beautiful "goddess", aka, mermaid, and they swim and frolic and chit-chat about life, love, being human and helping her dad with his work and perhaps his lovelife. Meanwhile, Dad struggles to translate an ancient, Greek parchment, and is beseiged by a local matchmaker and her girls. A crusty fisherman(Alki David, who also wrote, directed and overacted in the movie) and his cute son seek to discover and capture the mermaid.

From an adult perspective, it has it's Ok moments, but jumps much too much back and forth between what is reasonable, and what is totally loony. But overall, it wasn't boring for us, and we enjoyed our children's reactions.

It's filmed in England and Greece; the actors deliver for their silly roles: Billy Zane plays the father as a goofy, afraid of the water, but caring nerd; Amber Savva(daughter Serena) is super. There's lots of slapstick and pre-adolescent humor; the camera work is beautiful with the underwater and island scenes; we liked the music, especially with the first mermaid encounter, shot like a music-video.

And what about the mermaid? She convinced my two pre-school girls that they exist. Woo-hoo. The actress(Kelly Brook, who starred with Billy Zane in another island movie, 'Survivor Island' and share an off screen, bumpy relationship) is a bit stilted but pretty. I guess that's appropriate for goddess-mermaids. The costume's less revealing than Darryl Hannah's. Plus, there's no language, no sex, and only mild peril.

As a 'big person', I'd give it a 2 to 3 stars mainly because the story's so eclectic and unpolished. (Some reviews really trashed this flick.) But for the kids, it's a definite 5 stars! And we, as two disparaging adults, can sit through most of it without snoozing or total, brain cell atrophy and share our kids' laughs.

I bought this movie in high hopes that it would have plenty of "mermaid action" in it. It does!!! The mermaid and her tail are beautiful and you get to see her as a mermaid swimming in the ocean and also as a woman walking on land. My 9 year old daughter, the mermaid fanatic, really enjoys this movie!!!! Good for pre-teen to adult. (It is suitable for younger children, but they may be bored by the storyline).

I was excited with this purchase because I'm a huge mermaid fan, and hearing that a film had been created with Billy Zane in it seemed to indicate that some quality would be associated with the film.

Unfortunately it was not so.

Billy Zane, though a competent actor with I think he best role being in Dead Calm, was insufferable in this film. I disliked looking at his bumbling character that had little to no character development that was believable. The story is messy, and uninteresting.

The Mermaid character was lovely to see in the water when swimming, but the tail would crinkle and bend in the most unattractive of places, breaking the form. The tail is bumpy and not a nice shape, however the fin is nicely conceived and colored. The mermaid had scales over her breasts which looked silly. I think a nice top made of natural items would have been more pleasing and presentable.

It introduces some new mermaid lore specific to the story, but doesn't play out well. Of interest, there was a book the characters referred to with paintings by David Delamare. His artwork looked nice and should have featured more. Certainly the book and the information within should have been better utilized, but it was really just set dressing that was handled by the characters with little information coming from it.

The actress playing the mermaid character was just wrong for the part. I could see that she would be great in other roles, but this role was not gelling.

The strongest performer was the actress that played the daughter of Billy Zane. She was the only character whom I believed.

There was a subplot of a local fisherman who was hunting the mermaid for her jeweled tail and her stash of treasure, but it was clumsy and broke the flow of the film.

The cover image on the DVD cover was very pixellated making the characters and writing hard to read, thus it looked like an illegal copy with the image coming from a unofficial sources.

I bought it because it had a mermaid in it, and I'll probably only watch it again to show another fan of mermaids. Only worth it for other mermaid fans.

This movie had potential. It falls in the "family film" catagory and worth a watch with your kids if you have any between the age of 5-12.The casting was good, but the actors could have used a better script. The price was right and I gave it a shot and didn't regret watching it. It' a family film.

Fishtales is a cute movie for kids, but doesn't rise much further than that. As the cover art suggests, it's about a professor who falls in love with a mermaid while visiting a Greek island with his daughter. Also, there's a curmudgeonly Greek sailor who tries to capture the mermaid's jewels. Fishtales hits all the right romantic comedy notes, such as the single dad, magical love spells, and happy ending emphasizing the power of love. But the movie gets pretty silly, and will probably seem more corny than funny to most adults. Billy Zane's character, a professor, seems to procrastinate all the time and end up in ridiculous poses (his daughter finds him sleeping on his desk with his butt sticking out in the air. Other parts just seem awkwardly scary, like the Greek sailor trying to run the daughter over. Some of these parts might even be a bit too scary for little kids. Overall, it's a mixed bag that could have been better, but has its charms.

I am a full grown man and I love mermaids. However, when I ordered FishTales, what I received was not a mermaid but instead a movie about a mermaid. I'm not even sure the lady in the film was a real mermaid (surely they would not lie to me). As I would prefer to have a real woman/fish/goddess, I will settle reluctantly for the dvd itself. It is not a bad little flick. So I will give it five stars because I am under Love's spell...

My daughter loves mermaids so we got this one for our collection. It is cute. She liked it, but didn't love it like Aquamarine. Worth watching.

I bought this film because I'm a huge mermaid fan. To be honest, it's not really that great a film. I'm usually not one to deliver overly negative and opinionated views, but I think it should be said that the film isn't very well put together. All of the plots and sub-plots are kind of herky-jerky, and their isn't really a lot of depth by way of the character development. It also seemed kind of interesting to me that "Nereid," the Greek Sea Goddess had a British accent. While the mermaid was indeed beauiful and nicely designed, it just wasn't enough to help the story. There also wasn't enough background information on the legend of the Nereides (in my opinion). There is so much to the legend of the Nereides, (not to mention all the other greek gods and goddesses of the seas) that is unmentioned. If you're a mermaid fan then I'll recommend this DVD because of the fact that it has a mermaid in it. However, if you're looking for a REALLY GOOD live-action mermaid film, then I highly recommend Splash (20th Anniversary Edition)

Criticisms are so many, that it is difficult to express them clearly.
Plot: The substory of the captain (the bad guy) distracts from the mainline (which is a good premise, though totally botched). There is no development between characters (especially between the mermaid and the retarded professor). It is never clear what is going on.
Dialogues: They are sketchy, and they don't sound like normal exchanges between people.
Humor: just pie in the face all the time, not one intelligent joke. The Three Stoges did this kind of humor already, and better. This is unfunny.
Acting: Billy Zane and his daughter are quite good, although characters are overboard.
Visuals: The only good part. Mermaid is gorgeous, daughter is cute, sceneries are great.
I stopped watching after 45 minutes.