The story follows a rambunctious boy named Fly (Jeff Pace), his little sister, Stella (Michelle Westerson), and their brilliant-but-stuffy cousin, Chuck (Aaron Paul). After sneaking out to go fishing, the kids stumble upon the lair of an eccentric marine biologist (Terry Jones) who has developed a formula that turns humans into sea creatures. After Stella is accidentally transformed into a starfish and lost beneath the waves, it's up to Fly and Chuck to drink the potion and rescue her themselves. Fortunately for them, the professor also developed an antidote, which falls into the fins of a common pilot fish. After imbibing some of the potion, the fish (voiced by the late Alan Rickman) develops a humanlike intellect. Now calling himself Joe, he seeks to establish an deep-sea society of intelligent, talking fish (of which he is the unquestioned ruler). With only 48 hours until their change becomes permanent, it's up to the kids to rescue Stella, get the antidote away from Joe, and return to their human selves before it's too late.
On the surface, Help! I'm a Fish is fine enough. The voice acting is quite solid for an English dub and the delightfully-dated soundtrack of bouncy Scandanavian-style pop is loads of fun. It's got a pleasing visual style and a host of memorable character designs, in addition to being legitimately very well-animated for what it is. For a kids' movie about a magical science potion that turns people into fish, the script is surprisingly tight, setting up and foreshadowing important plot elements ahead of time so that everything flows in a sensible, coherent way. Functionally-speaking, it's a well-made movie, but that's not what made Help! I'm a Fish stand out to me. The thing that really struck me as interesting was just how dark and dramatic this film was willing to get.
The first thing worth mentioning is the villain, Joe. The film establishes a surprisingly mature metaphor for dictatorships; he who controls knowledge controls the populace. Joe is the keeper of the "magic potion", in addition to being the smartest thing under the sea. He controls who is worthy of the gift of sentience, as well as how smart they're allowed to get. He grants his followers enough mental capacity to speak and follow orders, but purposely keeps them duller than himself so they have no other option but to implicitly believe everything he says. While the metaphor is a little on-the-nose in this case, it's still a wildly original angle for a movie like this to pursue, given how the rest of the plot unfolds.
It's also worth noting how little the film shies away from the dramatic reality of our protagonists' situation. The ticking clock element is in full effect here, and the result is surprisingly heavy. The prospect of being forced to live out ones remaining years as a jellyfish is a worrying prospect, and the level of optimism our protagonists show deteriorates more and more as the film goes on. It may sound as though I'm hyperbolizing a bit here, but the film really does get downright dreary as it approaches the final act. There's also a surprising amount of death; there's no "fish are friends, not food" sentiment to be found here, as the shark Joe recruits as his enforcer (David Bateson) casually eats a number of characters without remorse. Usually these "tough but dopey henchman" type characters end up joining forces with the heroes in the end (typically after being mistreated time and time again by the primary antagonist), but that isn't the case here. The shark is, by all accounts, unapologetically malevolent and aggressive, taking extreme pleasure in chowing down on whatever unfortunate Joe allows him to. This is a movie about three children trapped in a fledgling dictatorship where everyone in charge wants to murder them. And it's called Help! I'm a Fish. Grim as that is, I haven't even touched on the climax yet.
Without spoiling anything, let me say this; the climax to this film is pure nightmare fuel. The rest of the movie was a tad more dramatic than I expected, but it still felt like a kids' movie. A little heavier than something like Frozen, sure, but still a kids' movie. The climax is typically where all the dramatic tension in a film comes to a head, but this movie has a tonal curve like a brick wall, veering into Cronenberg-esque body-horror at one point. If the final confrontation with Joe doesn't leave little ones wetting their underoos, we're treated to a scene that commits so soundly to selling the tragedy that occurs that it almost comes off as hilarious in a really mean-spirited kind of way. Again, I don't want to spoil anything, but this ending really needs to be seen to be believed. I'm all for children's entertainment that dabbles in the more macabre side of things, but the climax of Help! I'm a Fish is the stuff that "Top 10 Most Disturbing Childhood Movie Moments" clickbait articles are made of.
Suffice to say, I don't think this is a movie I'll be forgetting anytime soon. It's well put-together, well animated, and goes to some surprisingly dour places given that it's a movie about kids turning into cutesy cartoon fish. While I wouldn't necessarily go as far as to call it a hidden gem, Help! I'm a Fish is certainly a curiosity that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys outsider animation. By all means, grab some friends, dim the lights, and crack some jokes about Jesse Pinkman playing an obese kid who turns into a jellyfish. It's all just build-up to the insane punchline that is the hilariously bleak and traumatic climax that's sure to satisfy anyone who's ever asked "how did they get away with that?"
Credit and thanks go to Sparky from the "Help! I'm a Fan" fansite for the majority of screengrabs used in this Review.
1 comment:
I enjoyed your great analysis and remarks - for instance "the climax of Help! I'm a Fish is the stuff that "Top 10 Most Disturbing Childhood Movie Moments" clickbait articles are made of."Ha ha ! I had to pleasure to be in the team who wrote the songs that the characters sing as well as the opening song (not the chewing gum pop music !) and worked together with Rickman, who I think is eminent as the dark Joe, also in his interpretation of the song "Intelligence". I agree, that the end scene is very rough. But if you compare it to the killing of for instance the father of Simba in The Lion King, I think the latter is potentially just as disturbing (or more) to a child. Keep up the good writing. !! Best Anders Juhl aka Anders Twin
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