Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Smells Like Fish




When is the best time to meet a god, you've probably been wondering? According to Thomas Bradley, "The best time for a human to meet a god or goddess would be at noon." At noon, things shimmer and break down the barrier between man and beast and god. And after watching Fishtales, we believe it. One Hundred Percent.

Professor Thomas Bradley is a favorite among the students in the Oxford community where he is a visiting professor of ancient Greek mythology and language. He and his bratty and upfront daughter, Serena, are given the opportunity to spend the summer at the one of the kind, old British professor's summer home on one of the Greek Isles where he will be able to finish his paper about Ancient Greek love poems. 

Because her father spends most of his time working (and drinking), Serena spends most of her time listening to angsty music on her iPod and swimming in the forbidden cove. Here, she suddenly meets a mermaid who takes her snorkeling with a bubbly shell breathing apparatus which she places on her face without any prompting. She soon inexplicably learns that the mermaid is the mysteriously missing daughter of the professor who has offered his home to Serena and her father. Neried, our gorgeous mermaid with rather large breasts as a well as voluptuous, bodacious ass booty, speaks fluent ancient Greek. Because of her skills for the dead language, Serena thinks Neried can help her father with his translations to finish his paper. Luckily, Neried turns into a human when the sun sets at night so she can walk on land and into their lives forever. Serena uses this to her advantage to trick her father into meeting her and the rest is history--complicated ancient greek history. With fireworks and creepy Russian spies.

We were overwhelmed by the number of plot lines in this should-be Oscar winner. You have Professor Bradley and his job at Oxford, a Greek vacation, Serena's dead mother, Mythology, Love, small Dimitri and his thieving father, old Greek woman matchmakers, gay rights, "a-hole" grandparents, and random wedding parties gone up in flames. Literally. Like "disco inferno". 

This movie is undoubtably an underdog and we are sure we are the only ones to ever rent it from the video store.  We cannot however, pretend we do not understand why. While you do have Billy Zane,  Cal from Titanic, he is about the only recognizable and remotely talented actor in the cast. The horrible acting skills put forth by the rest of the small cast, most memorably, Serena, are quite painful to watch. Her character is also, if we do say so ourselves, a bitch. While she is only 12 ("and a half"!) years old, she is constantly ordering her father and other adults around like she is a princess. When really, she should just be ordering him to take her to the nearest Victoria's Secret to buy her a proper bra. Another element we could not look past was Billy Zane's obviously ill-fitting hair piece which is never properly groomed. However, the beautiful, classy, gorgeous (we have a thesaurus just like she does) mermaid likes the way his hair curls just above his eyebrow. Then there is the repetitive soundtrack that consists of about two songs just replayed throughout the entire movie.

The one redeemable plot point was small Dimitri (mentioned above). His unidentifiable accent coupled with his extreme courting of young Serena was enough to make our hearts melt. Though a victim of child neglect and minor abuse, he seems to have defied all odds and become a true romantic. Why Serena turned him down is the biggest mystery of the entire movie (and that's saying something). After all, age is just a number.

Though it is clear the budget was quite limited, we have learned a few valuable lessons from this great tale. First, we now know that even though the ancients described love as a sickness, it is nothing of the sort. In fact, love is hard work. And even if you are under a spell, true love will have to take it's place eventually. Second, toupees are never the answer. And lastly, if you are planning on filming a movie, you should plan wardrobe ahead of time, so as to not repeat ugly monkey shirts more than three times.

So. We highly recommend a trip to Amazon.com to buy Fishtales for $10.29. If you like uncomfortable moments full of intended humor, this movie is for you. And worth the cash.

Until our next Cinemazing Adventure, this is LexiConErrick signing out.




2 comments:

  1. Haha I almost actually want to see this and why is tranny Nigel Thornberry humping a rock? Is that the mermaid? LOL

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  2. This is one movie that will not be going on my Netlix queue.

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