Review of Splash (1984) by Ben L — 07 Mar 2014

I'm counting this as the first time I ever saw Splash because, while I remember select scenes from this film, I'm not sure I've ever seen the whole thing from start to finish. If I ever did see the whole thing I certainly didn't remember it all. Sadly this film feels shockingly dated, which isn't always a bad thing in my mind, but here it makes for a very clunky story. Some classic 80s films have these timeless stories so if you can forgive the visual style of 80s cinema they are quite enjoyable. But here I feel like we have a story that didn't age well and has been improved upon by a number of movies since then. The whole premise is strange. A mermaid falls in love with a man, somehow grows legs in place of a tail when she's dry, and then gets the man to fall in love with her. Maybe if Disney's Little Mermaid didn't exist this movie would have impressed me more, but in light of a considerably better telling of the same tale I just couldn't get into this one. Although I must say the costume work or whatever they used to create that tail is remarkable and stands up against any CGI effect studios could churn out nowadays.

Tom Hanks is the shining star of this film. He makes me laugh several times early in the film with his comedic delivery, and then makes a convincing love interest later in the film. Now I may get slammed for making this comment, but I have to go on record and say that I just don't like Daryl Hannah. She makes Madison kind of annoying, and struggles to produce much convincing chemistry with Hanks. I think she was going with an other-worldly approach since she comes from a different species, but it kind of feels stiff and robotic. John Candy is sadly wasted in his role as Hanks' brother. He gets only one or two decent physical gags, but the rest is pretty much garbage. His character is just a series of unfunny cliches like letters to Penthouse, paying off his gambling debts with a bad business deal, driving a sports car poorly. It's all useless, and wastes the talent of a hilarious actor. The kid who plays his character as a child gets more humorous moments than he does. Finally Eugene Levy is lackluster as the crazy obsessed villain, later in the film he gets a moment or two where he plays the role of amiable sidekick which suits him much better.

I'm trying to give this movie the benefit of the doubt because I did watch a version that was edited a bit for TV. I might have missed something, so I've slid in an extra half star in my rating. Despite that this movie doesn't really have many redeeming qualities. It starts out strong with several moments that literally made me say out loud "why can't they make comedies like this any more." Yet somewhere in the second act it's like they decided that they were done with jokes, and the film lost all its wit. There are frustratingly few jokes, especially in the final act. It's like they decided that in order to make the romance work they'd have to just stop the jokes completely for awhile. Out of nowhere we are left with a recreation of the final act of E.T. (You know, if Elliot was in love and wanted to marry E.T.) There is so much that falls flat for me in Splash. Even the ending is unsatisfactory, and kind of illogical. "Seriously? They're going to live together forever in some kind of mer-kingdom that lies in the waters surrounding New York?" Makes total sense of course. I still think Splash is a watchable film, it's just lacking in so many areas. It has been outshone by a number of other films that have come since, and therefore I see no reason to watch it again.