Fishtales

Dr. Thomas Bradley (Billy Zane) is a bumbling Oxford University professor of classical Greece. He is given one more summer to finish his database of ancient Greek. Another professor offers him a villa in Spetses, Greece. He travels there with his 12 year old daughter Serena. Captain Mavros sends him overboard. Thomas can't swim and he's rescued by mermaid Neried (Kelly Brook). Serena is looking for love for his father and asks Neried to translated old writings.

This is sort of like a bad kids movie. It's got sloppy slapstick. Billy Zane is wrong for a bumbling professor but the little girl is perfectly fine. I can't believe this got shown in Cannes. That is the last place to show this. This is a weakly made kids fantasy. It's more straight to video.

exciting plot,funny characters,uplifting jokes ,ALKI David VERY PROMISING AS mr .MAVROS, BILLY ZANE seducing as usual, cinematography very fulfilling creates as many variants as the characters being realistic and magical the same time ,editing too cuty but works well, a slower pace would be probably more funny, script is strong and very inventive with good jokes and twisted story lines that do not allow the viewer to be bored in a linear narration. A down to earth mermaid completes the puzzle with her humanistic approach and tolerance of the mortals, worth seeing it more than once as pure entertainment,take your kids or date with you. visually one of the more exciting images combining oxford atmosphere with Greek island taste and smell,yes images work so well that you almost touch and smell the locations.

Der Schnibbler was too kind when he called this movie jagged. The screenwriter seems to have no clue about anything. I howled in the beginning when Billy Zane's character is warned of the precarious position of a "visiting professor emeritus." ("Emeritus" is a fancy word for "retired", hardly appropriate for the youthful Zane, and visitors don't retire because they never had a permanent job in the first place.) The mermaid doesn't make any attempt to hide herself, but the villagers are unaware of her. When the daughter first encounters her, both characters are unsurprised and swim together like old friends, with no hesitation or getting-to-know-you scenes. I could go on and on.

The filmmakers seem to have been making up the plot as they went along, while suffering some sort of amnesia as to what came before. Yes, it's a fantasy, but there is zero internal logic. And whenever they run out of ideas, they resort to gross-out jokes. (TWO crotch blows in 15 seconds? Give me a break.)

I will, however, admit that all the leads are photogenic. I hope that next time they will read the script before signing up.

Simple, innocent and romantically fun. A good family movie to enjoy.

Dr. Thomas Bradley (Billy Zane) is a typical absent-minded professor. Writing a book about the lore and language of ancient Greece, he is having trouble, nonetheless, meeting deadlines. His young daughter, Serena, is at a loss about how to help him. At the college's direction, Dr. Bradley is told to travel to the Greek isles and finish his book at the appropriate time. Unfortunately, Thomas is a bit of a scaredy-cat when it comes to the sea and he can't swim, so the prospect of a working vacation surrounded by water doesn't please him. Yet, once he and his daughter arrive at their destination, Dr. Bradley does find the atmosphere quite nice. So does Serena. In fact, Serena meets a beautiful neried (Kelly Brook), a classical name for mermaid, on the shore and is fascinated by her new acquaintance. The young girl is soon determined to "match" the mermaid to her father, despite the fact that the water-lady only has legs after sunset. Then, too complications arrive when a native Greek gentleman begins following the foreigners, for his grandson has told him a mermaid has been seen on the shore near their house. Will the professor finish his book in time and will he be interested in romance, too? This was quite a lovely film for those fans of light romance. The cast is nice, with Zane giving a fine comical turn as the professor and Brook utterly gorgeous and dry-witted as the neried. All other cast members give talented turns, too. Naturally, the scenery in Greece is beautiful beyond measure and the costumes, production values, script and direction are worthy, too. But, although the movie is touted as an acceptable family film, some parents might object to the daughter's occasional back-talk and the use of words like "a-hole". All in all, however, kids will probably enjoy it, especially young girls. Therefore, if you or yours love humorous romance and sweet stories, here is a tale to bring home someday soon. There's nothing fishy in saying a good time will be had by all, young and old alike.