Genre: Romance/Comedy
Director: Elizabeth Allen
Starring: Joann ‘Jo Jo’ Levesque, Emma Roberts, Sarah Paxton, Jake McDorman
RunTime: -
Released By: 20th Century Fox
Rating: PG

Opening Day: 27 April 2006

Synopsis :

Following a violent storm, a beautiful and sassy mermaid named Aquamarine, washes ashore and into the lives of two teenage girls. As Aquamarine struggles to discover a new world beyond the sea and to fit in with her new environment and friends, she falls for a local, hunky lifeguard and enlists the girls’ help to win his heart.

Movie Review:


As far as light-hearted preteen comedies are concerned, this movie screams ‘Chick Flick Alert!’ all over. Based on the novel written by Alice Hoffman, this mermaid story is a far cry from the classics of ‘Splash’ or ‘The Little Mermaid’, but for the audience it is aimed at– mainly girls between the ages of 8 to 15, it does succeed on connecting with them.

Claire and Hailey (Emma Roberts and JoJo Levesque) are spending their last summer together before the latter has to move to Australia. Dreading the move, the girls make a desperate prayer to the gods of the Hurricane, which somehow leads to a miracle of getting a mermaid washed up into their swimming pool after a heavy freak storm.

The girls discover the mermaid the next day and it doesn’t take long for them to befriend each other. Aquamarine (Sara Paxton) is a runaway mermaid who has made a deal with her father in order to escape an arranged wedding. She needs to find the mythical emotion of human love in three days, or else it’s back to the aisle and wedding bells for her. Naively, she randomly selects the resident lifeguard hunk, Ray (Jake McDorman) to be her target of love, and enlists the assistance of the two girls in exchange for a wish to be granted for their good deed. The task is overcome with hurdles including teaching Aqua how to behave like a normal girl, and fending off a rival, who happens to be your regular clichéd villain – the spoilt and mean rich girl.

Newcomers Emma Roberts (famous niece of Julia Roberts) and Jojo Levesque are charming on screen, but those acting skills could do with some improvement. Jojo looks very much like a younger Lindsay Lohan, and makes an improvement in the image department here compared to her underage vamped up persona when she’s singing. Sara Paxton is a lot like a young Reese Witherspoon and though she will need more challenging roles in future to prove herself, she probably has the best potential of having a successful career in Hollywood.

This movie is mostly fluff and bubbly fun entertainment and the plot does get a little predictable at certain points. However, it does bring across two key values clearly – that are the concepts of love and friendship. The laughs and the story are rather enjoyable on the whole if you don’t mind the overall cheeriness of it. Bare in mind, this movie is catered for young girls, so don’t watch it if you don’t like seeing giggly boy-crazy girls practically stalking after a guy.

Movie Rating:

(A bright and cheery movie for teenage girls, you have been warned that this is pure chick flick territory)

Review by Jolene Tan