★ 7 / 10
Really good watch, could watch again, and can
Kamurai
Really good watch, could watch again, and can recommend. Even after 25 years, this holds up, though a modernization is probably due soon. Hop in the way back…
Really good watch, could watch again, and can recommend.
Even after 25 years, this holds up, though a modernization is probably due soon.
Hop in the way back machine and see some of the greats early on: Tom Hanks, Daryl Hannah, John Candy, and Eugene Levy. That team pretty much carries the movie and they go through a wonderful, fun-filled adventure into a mystery of a new girl in Allen's life. Honestly, you could probably cut out the mermaid bit and have her be a crazy foreign girl, though that sounds like a movie someone has made already.
It being a mermaid movie definitely makes some allowances, and makes the movie more memorable. It adds in a metaphor of the importance of communication into the writing, and gives a focal point for the story to move around and become a focus in the 3rd act. As there is barely a direct antagonist in this, this sort of conflict is usually how a romantic comedy resolves.
It's a fun watch, well made for it's time, and imagine most people, especially mermaid movie fans, will enjoy it.
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★ 6 / 10
Twenty years earlier "Allen" (Tom Hanks) had a
CinemaSerf
Twenty years earlier "Allen" (Tom Hanks) had a mysterious underwater encounter with a rescuer. Advance to present day and he is managing a fish market with his…
Twenty years earlier "Allen" (Tom Hanks) had a mysterious underwater encounter with a rescuer. Advance to present day and he is managing a fish market with his sibling "Freddie" (John Candy). Another trip to Cape Cod, another accident and yep, it's the same saviour - only this time their eyes meet over a choppy sea and shortly afterwards she follows him onto the land. It's lust/love at first sight and pretty soon she is living with him. She (Daryl Hannah) calls her self "Madison" after the avenue/president and after a day in Bloomingdale's television department picks up enough English to join in the rest of this rather slapstick movie - or to at last have a post-coital chat! Thing is, madcap scientist "Prof. Kornbluth" (Eugene Levy) is soon on her tail (!) and after chucking buckets of water at a similarly attired couple a few times, our lovebirds find themselves incarcerated in a lab where they are to be the subject of some nasty experiments. Can they escape the clutches of their captors and get her back to the open sea before six days expire and she finds herself stuck? The idea is quite fun and at the start when they are in their respective discovery phases, it's quite entertaining. It just repeats itself too often, though, and the presence of his annoyingly selfish brother just clutters it all up, gradually creating the look of a slightly farcical episode of the "A-Team". It's watchable but I didn't find there to be any chemistry between the stars - Hannah was never a particularly engaging actor, I found - and it's all rather forgettable.
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★ 7 / 10
Took me all these years to finally see Splash
walkingwithprimeval
Upon my initial viewing of Splash (1984), I really didn't know what to expect other than some silly old fantasy-romance film about Woody's voice actor falling…
Upon my initial viewing of Splash (1984), I really didn't know what to expect other than some silly old fantasy-romance film about Woody's voice actor falling in love with a non-redhead fish-lady. But to my delight, the film had quite a fair bit of well-timed comedy that was surprisingly good and not agonisingly painful to sit through (unlike the case with most torturous romantic-comedies I can think of). And speaking of things that are agonisingly painful to sit through, I thought the whole romantic angle with our two extremely-compelling leads was going to bore me to tears but it actually worked miraculously for me as Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah both have some rather sweet and charming chemistry together when portraying their respective characters on-screen. Full disclosure; I'm usually not the kind of guy who normally goes for a typical romance film (not one with a real-world setting, at least) as the love connection between the main characters just never seems to be convincing enough for me to truly believe in it. But in the case of this genre incorporating some fictional type of fantasy element, then I'm willing to make an exception (what can I say? I'm just a sucker for a pretty mermaid, I guess).The entire time watching this, I was quite taken aback by the design style and overall appearance they went with for the film's mermaid, with "Madison" having golden-blonde hair and an orangey-red fishtail (it somehow didn't feel right to me). It may just only be me and I might be completely alone on this opinion of mine but after first seeing The Little Mermaid (1989) at a very young age, I suppose I'm always going to think of a mermaid's contrasting colour-tone as more of a crimson-red hairdo and emerald-green tail-fins with nice shiny fish-scales (I'm probably too far gone to picture anything else, at this point in time). But after a brief adjustment period, I now think I'm content with her look and have even grown to like it (yep, I still thought she was kind of cute in her own unique way). Unsurprisingly, The Disney Company decided to release this under the label of their recently-established Touchstone distribution banner as its romantic plot-line dealt with the somewhat risqué subject matter of presenting the audience with a half-naked woman's bare-body in a magical context. As such, this meant it wasn't suitable for being family-friendly PG material and so with that it rightfully came to earn more of a 12A age-rating.I thought leading lady Daryl Hannah was really great in the role, and that's the thing which shocked me most of all because I found everything else I've seen her in to be not that good; Clan or the Cave Bear (1986) was just OK even if a tad underwhelming, I haven't seen the Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman (1993) remake but I take it it's better than the original one, and I didn't even make it to the end of boring old Blade Runner (1982). In Splash, most of the comedy stems from her compelling naivety and I honestly found her little interactions with different things on land to be genuinely amusing (and F. Y. I.; being naive isn't the same as being stupid, as it simply means the character is smart but just doesn't know any better when thrown into uncertain situations that are unfamiliar to them). There's a myriad of comedic potential you could mine from a funny concept such as this (in a literal "fish-out-of-water" scenario), and it very much reminds me of how Ariel acted in The Little Mermaid (1989) when she was totally enamoured with our human culture and wanted to learn everything there is to know about the surface world above. I simply love characters like that, having their personalities constantly radiating with intrigue the whole time (it's the simple stuff like this that I really appreciate and ultimately look for in a right good movie).I felt like director Ron Howard did a pretty good job with this film. To be honest, most of his filmography consists of movies that I have very mixed opinions on. However, I personally feel there's been more hits than misses when it comes to some of his more earlier works. I am aware of the fact that the film's story was followed up on with a perfectly passable made-for-TV sequel a few years later, titled Splash Too (1988). But I think it has the same fundamental issue the Grease 2 (1982) failure had where the studios have a really successful movie on their hands and they didn't know what to do with it, so they end up retreating a lot of the same ground as before by trying to recapture that same magic they had the first time around (only thing is, you can't catch lighting in a bottle twice). And suffice to say although it was a decent watch, it wasn't able to fully recreate what it was that made the first one's quality so endearingly special.
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6.3/10
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Good Movie since i was young