Scales: Mermaids Are Real (2017)

Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Purely Joyful Movie!

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

My daughters (9 and 12) like the Mako Mermaids, so we sat down and watched this. The acting was so bad, it is laughable. We laughed our way thru this, and its ridiculous dialogue. The mermaids start singing right in front of Siren...Siren asks "Are they singing?" ha. Another silly point: The bad guys seek Siren's blood. Siren offers to simply give them some of her blood, without a fight. But they still insist on trying to abduct her for some reason. ??? On the mermaid tail itself, costuming didn't spend much time nor money on it, to even attempt it to look real. Truly laughable. It's destined for "Mystery Science Theatre 3000". Yes, this is THAT poorly made.

This film is just another one of those little films produced, usually marketing to a single demographic, in this case, little girls. I watched this film with my two little sisters today after we ate dinner, and the film itself left a bad taste in my mouth. That being said, there are some good parts of this movie, and the plot itself isn't all that bad. There are some really heartfelt scenes as well as few pretty shots, and some okay cgi for the mermaids. But the one thing about this movie that really set me off was the ending, in which one of the main villans of the story, a reasearcher on mermaids whose name I've forgoten, gets brutally muredered by the main character, Siren. How? Well, by having Siren use her mermaid powers to munipulate the 68% of water in his body to kill him, causing him to choke on his own fluids and disintergrate into a small pile of wet clothes. I mean, how else would you have a villan die in a kids film?Now, how do the characters of this story react to such a dark death of a character? They literally just brush it off. One of the other mermaids even asks Siren if she can "teacher her that move." Overall, going into this, I knew I was probably not going to like it, and I was right, but I was not prepared for such a unsettling death in this film for little girls. Though, I guess its not as bad of a death as in some Disney films.

Decided to give this movie a chance. My daughters (12 & 16) enjoy mermaids and we love family movies. A 5 out of 10 IMDb rating usually isn't very good.. but in this case it was far too generous.I'm a huge fan of movies and studied film as part of my corollary sequence in college. I have a real appreciation for the work that goes into them (and I've helped on a few film school films and been in a few movies as an extra or with bit parts). A LOT of work goes into making movies, so I hate to not see something really great in most movies.The story itself and script on this are pretty bad. But that's okay since you can't really figure out if it's the bad script or really bad acting. I wanted to think that maybe it was the fact that I'm an adult watching what I figured was a kids movie, but that never stopped me from really enjoying everything from Dolphin Tale to Shrek to Monsters Inc or any number of awesome family/kids movies. I asked my daughters what they thought (expecting an "it was okay"), but got a "it was really bad and cheesy".It's really unfortunate that it was so bad because, to it's credit, it has some pretty shots in it (location shots), but the script and acting are so bad that it's not even tolerable. My 16 year old daughter even noticed the production music was (as she put it) "sounded canned". Actually now that she says it, it's really not very fitting to the events or scenes.This ranks up there with "Hot To Trot" (Bobcat Goldthwait movie from '88)... not a good movie at all.

This was a wonderful movie about growing up, dealing with changes in life and becoming aware of how the world really can be as we begin the journey of leaving childhood and how we are forced to rapidly mature to deal with what life throws at us when we have no choice but to survive. All of this wrapped up by the whimsical fantasy that Mermaids live among us, set against a beautiful coastal town backdrop.I was lucky enough to attend the screening of "Scales: Mermaids Are Real" at the Newport Beach Film Festival. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, especially as this movie is targeted to a younger audience, but I came away feeling that I truly enjoyed the movie. There was never a dull moment, the writing was fantastic, the lead Emmy Perry delivered a flawless natural performance and the entire ensemble was perfectly cast for their roles and did a great job.The cinematography was incredible, it provided some stunning imagery on the screen, some wonderful locations and a gradual shift from the warm coastal scenery to the colder, more daunting side of town and the inhabitants living there. I wholeheartedly recommend this for all the family, I really think this is a true gem of a movie.