toledoblade.com --

Omigod, can I tell you?

Mermaids rock! They look exactly like we do but with longer legs and longer hair and freaky cool eyes and come to think of it they look like Daryl Hannah, and when you do something nice for a mermaid, they grant you a wish.

They live in your swimming pool and don't eat a lot (I don't think). They speak English and have parental issues and are sarcastic and like to shop and read CosmoGirl and their toenails change color with their moods and they talk to lobsters and use live starfish for earrings and if your cell battery dies, they know a cool way to get in touch:

They flip open their shell.

Anyway, I'm telling you this because I took mom and dad to see the new movie Aquamarine and mom said, "Isn't that a toothpaste?" And I was all, like, whatever. Dad was all "How long is this going to be?" And mom was all "There's nothing offensive, is there? You are 11. Remember, you are a tween."

And I was all, Chill, it's practically a Nickelodeon TV movie. It's about a mermaid and two friends and the summer of their lives.

When the mermaid and her human friends gawked at the lifeguard - Jake McDorman, never heard of him - and the lifeguard shook water off his abs and the movie went all slow motion, dad leaned over and said: "Brokeback Mountain didn't make me this uncomfortable."

So I leaned over:

Duh, it's not for you, dad.

Aquamarine is not for parents, not at all. Leave them at home. Kids my age, 11, or as young as 9, will dig it. I heard some giggling. My dad, though, didn't buy the part where the mermaid (whose name is Aquamarine) gets legs because it's sunny. When the sun goes down, her tail pops back out. This causes problems because she is in Florida looking for love (that's the plot, I guess) and whenever she starts talking to a lifeguard it always seems to be dusk, so she flakes and leaves the guy wondering what he did but really she's just trying to protect her big secret. But my dad, the big jerk, has to lean over and say, "You know, the sun is always out in some part of the world, or is she like a vampire mermaid?"

So, I lean over and tell him to pay attention because these actress are going to be really big one day. I think. Maybe. They're big to me and my friends. Emma Roberts is probably the biggest name. She's the best actress-actress. She has music CDs and she stars on Nickelodeon's Unfabulous and she's the niece of Julia Roberts and the daughter of that guy in the Killer's video, who I think is named Eric Roberts. Anyway, the whole family has that same gigantic sharky smile.

Emma plays Claire and she's scared of water because her parents drowned. I totally believed her. And when her friend got angry at her mom because they're going to move and make her change schools, I felt for her friend, too. Her friend is Hailey. She is played by that singer on MTV, JoJo. The Mermaid is played by Sara Paxton. She's a mediocre mermaid. She could at least pretend she's never been to a mall.

That said, I don't know what to think about Aquamarine. It's silly and it gets how I talk to my friends and stuff. It knows we're insecure and think about boys and read Teen People. But it's also more serious than you expect from a movie about mermaids. It's based on a book by Alice Hoffman and kind of eerie, and even reminded me of the night scenes in E.T. Except, as far as I remember, Elliot didn't make plans to carry on a long-distance love affair with E.T. when he left.

Contact Christopher Borrelli at: cborrelli@theblade.com
or 419-724-6117.