MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Hitchcoc There is indeed a mermaid who is trying to deal with humans who can't seem to get along. There are goldfish and other wet things. We are treated to a lot of running around and going nowhere (or at least not too far). The mermaid has unique qualities. The stop action tricks are haphazard at best and have been done by this man so often.

framptonhollis During the dawn of cinema, no filmmaker was more creative and fantastic than the French magician turned director Georges Méliès, the man behind countless classic fantasies. "The Mermaid" is among his many efforts and it enraptures his style more so than most of his other movies can. Méliès, himself, plays the lead role as a magician who shows off some of his finest tricks before finally summoning a mermaid as a sort of climax to his act. The film is comical and light in tone and is likely to leave most viewers with a bright, shining smile across their lips, and many will be able to find that stem in their brain that encourages all of the wonderment and excitement of childhood. The editing here is clearly revolutionary for its time, although it may seem ridiculously flawed and obvious nowadays, back in 1905 it was anything but. Classic camera tricks are constantly being used to their full advantage as Méliès playfully shows off his skills in the crafts of magic and cinema (or, should I say, cinemagic).

MartinHafer This short silent film is part of the DVD collection entitled "The Magic of Méliès" and is the fourth volume of THE MOVIES BEGIN series from Kino Video. Unlike copies of Méliès' films that are posted on the internet, the prints for these short films are exceptionally crisp and clean and feature wonderful musical scores. Oddly, though, is that aside from a few films such as THE BLACK IMP and THE IMPOSSIBLE VOYAGE, most of the shorts chosen for this DVD are actually not among the best of Méliès' films--having a strong tendency to show is "stagy" material as opposed to the films that have elaborate sets and plots. In particular, my favorites such as BARBE-BLEUE and LE VOYAGE DANS LE LUNE (his most famous film) are not on this DVD.This is a pretty dull film, as much of it is simply a movie of Méliès performing magic tricks. In person this might be interesting, but on film (where it's no trick to use camera tricks to make a magician seem great), it just doesn't impress. Then, when the mermaid enters the picture, she is pretty sloppily integrated compared to the camera tricks in many of the director's other short films. All in all, among the worst and least inspiring films of this film genius and pioneer.

Snow Leopard This Georges Méliès short feature has some pretty good visual effects once it gets going. Some of the special effects are very familiar from other Méliès features, but there is also some original material that is at times quite creative.As do a number of Méliès films, this one starts with a stage performer doing a routine. This part of it is rather bland, and although there are a couple of interesting tricks, it is really only a preface to the main sequence underwater, which is thematically set up by some tricks with fish.Once it gets to the actual "Mermaid" sequence, the movie really hits its stride. There are a couple of times when the camera tricks are a bit obvious, and maybe not quite up to Méliès's usual standard, but most of the other shots are rather nice. As it goes along, the visuals get more elaborate and more creative, so it's worth watching all the way through despite the slow start.