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Review:
 This
film reminds me of a line from the “Rocky Horror Picture Show,”
where Frank tells Janet: “I didn't make him for YOU!!!”
This film clearly wasn't made for guys like me. It was made for
pre-teen girls and nobody else. (Not that there's anything wrong
with that of course) But that means that the usual rules of
criticism don't actually apply as the film may be far better to
it's target audience than it is to someone like me.
The film is about lust, not love like it pretends to be, but lust
pure and simple. Claire (Emma Roberts) and Hailey (Joanna “Jojo”
Levesque) are two two horny teenagers living in Florida. The
object of their lust is the lifeguard, recent high school grad
Raymond(Jake McDorman). They giggle, they squee, and have some
vacuous discussions about some more important things like Clair's
fear of swimming and Hailey's upcoming move to Australia.
Clair doesn't want to move, so during their last sleepover they do
a pagan ritual of some sort during a storm, and voila! a magical
mermaid named Aquamarine(Sara Paxton) shows up in the nearest
swimming pool and is immediately identified as a snarky bitch with
a bit of a problem.
Her divine daddy has decreed that she has to marry an aged jerk in
three days unless she can prove to him true love exists. Yeah,
right. So we spend most of the rest of the movie looking to get
Aqua laid. After all, we're mistaking love for lust, here. Aqua
learns all about the “tween” experience of romance from those
teenage advice magazines with numbers for titles before going on
to attempt the seducion of Raymond and battling Rays
girlfriend(Arielle Kebbel) for his favors. Even with a few tiny
original plot twists, this is a paint-by-numbers affair, with
decent acting with the punitive successors to Hillary Duff and the
Olsen twins. If you're not a twelve year old girl, pass it by.
Eric Lurio
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