A widowed professor gets the summer on a Greek island to finish his database on ancient love spells. He brings his daughter. She tries to find a woman or mermaid for her socially awkward dad... Read allA widowed professor gets the summer on a Greek island to finish his database on ancient love spells. He brings his daughter. She tries to find a woman or mermaid for her socially awkward dad.A widowed professor gets the summer on a Greek island to finish his database on ancient love spells. He brings his daughter. She tries to find a woman or mermaid for her socially awkward dad.
Efi Papatheodorou
- Klymeni
- (as Effi Papatheodorou)
Vicky Protogeraki
- Niece 1
- (as Bicky Protogeraki)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Featured reviews
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.
The only good thing in this movie are the quotes. It's all so corny and ridiculous, my family quotes it all the time.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Did you know
- TriviaThe mermaid tail that Kelly Brook and her stunt double, Hannah Stacey, wore for the film were specially moulded to fit each of them and took three and a half months to build.
- How long is Fishtales?Powered by Alexa
Details
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- Also known as
- Priče o sireni
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Box office
- Budget
- $14,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross worldwide
- $9,216
- Runtime
- 1h 34m(94 min)
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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