Aquamarine

I wanted to hate this movie. Everything from the constant squealing of "Oh My God", the stream of clichés and the sheer ridiculousness of some of the dialouge pointed in the direction of a complete waste of time. Somehow however, Aquamarine managed to win me over through charm and its child like determination to please. The movie centers around two teenage girls (Emma Roberts and JoJo) who are spending their last summer together before Hayley (Jojo) moves away to Austrailia. Their summer takes a surprising twist when they discover a mermaid (Sara Paxton) in a pool after a terrible storm. They spend the rest of the summer trying to help her find true love. Both Emma Roberts and Jojo are newcomers to the screen and do a surprisingly good job at playing bubbly girls without making the audience want to wring their necks 10 minutes in and though each have yet to develop their skills especially at showing a wide range of emotions, they certainly are charming and enjoyable to watch. Sara Paxton looks and talks the part and though this role wasn't one to exhibit any real acting abilities she embraces the part full on. Yes, Aqaumarine features a mean blonde girl and yes there is the "hot" guy but if you watch this movie for exactly what it is, a fluffy escape from life, then it shouldn't bother you. So if you are ever in the mood, wait until it comes out on video and don't pay 10 dollars on it, it is definitely a rental.

"Aquamarine" seems the typical teen romantic comedy, and it is, but I'm not saying that this movie is bad, because is not. This movie is cute, funny and entertaining. It is a good comedy about friendship and love.

All begins when two teenagers, Claire and Hailey discover in their beach club's swimming pool a young mermaid called Aquamarine, who has escaped from an arranged wedding. She must find a love in three days, to show her father that love exists. Then she falls in love with the lifeguard Raymond. Claire and Hailey help her to get Raymond because if they help a mermaid they can get a wish, so they use their wish to stop Hailey' mom moving to Australia.

The cast includes Sara Paxton as Aquamarine, Emma Roberts as Claire, Joanna "JoJo" Levesque as Hailey and Jake McDormand as Raymond. "Aquamarine" is a cute comedy full of funny situations and love and friendship scenes. Don't miss this movie, it's not a waste of time.

I took my nine-year-old sister to see this movie today. It was between this movie and Chicken Little, and she admitted she wanted to see this more, so that was fine with me. Remembering the display of ultimate mediocrity that was A Cinderella Story, one of the last movies we saw in the theater together, I was prepared to hate and be bored by this movie. That is to say, I went in expecting crappy dialogue, a predictable yet forced and contrived plot, and acting that ranged from mediocre to awful. Its having below a 3.0 on IMDb (compared to A Cinderella Story's 5.2) certainly didn't help matters.

And I have to say . . . I was pleasantly surprised. Not because the dialogue was brilliant, the plot was novel, and the acting was amazing. It was just all better than what I expected. Okay, a lot of the dialogue was pretty cheesy, and you can see the "plot twists" coming a mile away. But I have to admit, I chuckled out loud a couple of times, and as for the acting, it wasn't NEARLY as bad as what Ms. Duff had led me to expect from these young women. Actually, this movie turned out to be, dare I say, slightly charming at times, and even when the mermaid annoyed me with her unfunny quips about life on land versus life in the sea (which was at least half of the time she was on screen), the other two main characters were actually fun to watch together. They're not future Judi Denchs in the making, and probably not even future Keira Knightleys or Natalie Portmans in the making, but I'd GLADLY choose them over Hilary Duff any day of the week.

And this is the real reason why I'm commenting here. I can understand that if you didn't go into the movie knowing how tweeny it was going to be, you would loathe it with your entire soul. I don't really know how that would happen, considering who two out of three of the leads are, but still . . . if that's what happened to you, I understand. But come on . . . this movie was not worse than A Cinderella Story, so please, let's stop rating it as such. A Cinderella Story was less charming, less unique, and less valuable in the "What Lessons Can We Learn From These Characters?" Department than Aquamarine by a long shot.

So, do I think this was a good movie? Well, I'm 21, so that's pretty much impossible. Like I said . . . thin and predictable. But is it a BAD movie? No. It accomplishes what it sets out to do. My little sister loved it, and I can see why. Therefore I give this movie not a 10 or a 1 but a 5, that is, a rating of perfect mediocrity. If you know a girl between the ages of 8 and 13, feel free to take her to see it, because she'll probably love it, and honestly, you're not going to mind it all that much. I promise.

I promised my sister I would take her to a movie for her birthday and buy her popcorn a few weeks ago, and today was the day we settled on. I was pushing for Failure to Launch or She's the Man, but my sister was determined to see Aquamarine. So fifteen dollars later we were all nestled in. The movie starts off extremely slow and was, in my opinion, painful to watch. I must admit I was much more entertained with thinking of ways that I could sneak in to The Hills Have Eyes, which was playing at the theater across from ours. But in the end I stayed for the movie, giving me plenty of time to think over my criticisms. I think Emma Roberts (timid and diminutive Claire) may be a rare star who started out acting fairly well and is getting worse. I thought her early Unfabulous days were good, but now I can barely stand to watch the show. Her over-the-top mugging drives me insane. I wasn't expecting much out of JoJo (bold and strong Hailey) at all. I knew it wasn't exactly fair writing her off for being a singer, but that's what I did. And I was extremely, pleasantly surprised. She did a great job, I thought. I wasn't expecting much from Sara Paxton (the titular mermaid Aquamarine) judging by the painful "I see we're going to have to take this slow: Mer Maid" in the trailers, but she ended up doing okay. All in all, it wasn't a great movie, but it picks up in the second half and finishes well, so it was a pretty decent way to spend almost two hours on a cold Saturday afternoon. Although next time, I think I'll pick the movie.

Aquamarine By Dean Kish For hundreds of years we have been fascinated with the nautical myth that there are beings in the oceans who are ½ fish and ½ woman. They are always young, beautiful and completely naive. Some classic films have captivated this obsession. The first biggest and most memorable film was the classic 1984 comedy "Splash" which really brought the myth back into the fore-front of our minds. Next was 1989's "The Little Mermaid" which stole our hearts and re-launched Disney's animation division.

Probably the most obscure reference and the most bizarre use of the mermaid myth was used in the short-lived TV series, "Maximum Bob" where an ultra right-wing judge (Beau Bridges) marries a psychic mermaid-performer (Kiersten Warren). There are a lot of scenes with Warren in an aquarium and dressed in her fish tail.

OK I have covered the biggest to the most obscure which brings me to "Aquamarine".

"Aquamarine" is a light-hearted preteen comedy about a naive mermaid, Aquamarine (Sara Paxton) who comes ashore to uncover the human myth called love. Helping her in finding this mythical emotion are two best friends, Claire and Hailey (Emma Roberts and JoJo), who befriend the mermaid. It turns out that the friends maybe separated forever when Hailey moves away. Aquamarine promises them a wish if they help her find true love so the girls, desperate to stay together, help her out.

This film is probably not a classic or will be fondly remembered in five years but for the audience it is aimed at it succeeds on many levels. I liked the performances of Emma Roberts and Sara Paxton. I even warmed up to JoJo a little.

What I kept saying as the film went on was how these three girls looked like junior versions of established actors. I felt that Paxton reminded me a lot of a younger Reese Witherspoon and Roberts reminded me some of her aunt, Julia Roberts. JoJo did also remind me of Lindsay Lohan but there isn't much of an age difference between them so you can't really say junior version.

I think that Paxton and Roberts have a lot of potential in their Hollywood careers. JoJo could have a career in film but does she have the ability to manage music and film like say, Hilary Duff. Only time will tell.

"Aquamarine" is a great little film if you have girls who are between 8 and 15 but other than that I can't really recommend it to anyone else. But you have to give it marks for succeeding so well in a pinch demographic. (3.5 out of 5) So Says the Soothsayer (dwkish@shaw.ca)