Director: Dustin Rikert
Cast: Jerry O’Connell, Barry Bostwick, Caitlin Carmichael, Nancy Stafford
Rating: U
Running Time: 92mins
DVD Release Date: 14th August
A MERMAID’S TALE follows a young girl as she arrives in her father’s home town by the sea. After rescuing a girl trapped in a fishing net, she realises she has saved a mermaid and is suddenly introduced to a new world of magic in the sea.
A movie like this is primarily aimed at young girls, it isn’t really supposed to appeal to anyone else. As long as it serves its purpose and young children love it, then it works. Unfortunately, it is difficult to imagine anyone enjoying A Mermaid’s Tale.
The film feels wrong almost instantly, with clunky dialogue and extremely irritating performances. Ryan (Caitlin Carmichael) arrives in her new home and rescues a mermaid  named Coral (Sydney Scotia) trapped in a fishing net. The fact that mermaids exist doesn’t appear to phase Ryan much, she’s surprised and delighted, but they quickly become best friends.
The actual screen time of mermaids is pretty minimal. Coral spends most of her time on land with legs, occasionally swimming through the ocean in some low-budget but interesting scenes. Instead of ocean mermaid scenes, we get boring montages of Ryan and Coral shopping or bizarrely dancing on the beach NEXT to the ocean.
The film starts of fairly quickly, with Ryan being introduced to mermaids less than 20 minutes in. However, the middle act drags terribly, with scene after scene of pointless filler and nothing that contributes to the story. You forget you’re watching a film about mermaids at one point, it feels more like a movie about two young teenagers who are best friends. It’s very strange that A Mermaid’s Tale doesn’t feature that many mermaids.
Overall, A Mermaid’s Tale will most likely be considered boring by a lot of young children. There are very few scenes of actual mermaids and the film mostly consists of filler scenes of teenagers shopping and hanging out. It’s a pretty lazy attempt at a children’s film that will leave people bored and annoyed.
A Mermaid’s Tale is available on digital download now.Â
