Details on KIDS FIRST! Title

Description:

Barbie™ stars as Merliah™, a surfing champion from Malibu. One minute she's a normal teenager and the next she learns a shocking family secret: she's a mermaid! Merliah™ and her dolphin friend Zuma set off on an undersea adventure to rescue her mother, the queen of Oceana. With help from her new mermaid friends, Merliah™ saves the ocean kingdom. In the end, she discovers what makes you different can also be your greatest strength.

KIDS FIRST!® Adult Juror Comments:

This latest release of Barbie movies features a very self-sufficient and hip Surfer, Merliah who discovers that her mother is a mermaid and she is in danger somewhere deep under the sea in a place called Oceana. When Merliah takes off to rescue her mother, she has no idea that she is a princess, destined to become queen of Oceana should any harm come to her mother. She is young and innocent, immediately befriended by the local teen mermaids who expose her to their magical kingdom under the sea - complete with fashion boutiques and other accoutrements not unlike what teens find above the sea. This video will appeal to any preteen who is attuned to fashion, the environment or behaving heroically - if only in your imagination. I love the shots of Merliah surfing and the underwater landscapes and critters. They're imaginative. Fish as paparazzi! Calissa's evil sister, Erris, is suitably evil but won't give anyone nightmares. The music is upbeat, original and very danceable. Fun story, easy to watch.

KIDS FIRST!® KID Juror Comments:

Loved it. "I really liked this movie because it had a good story and a good ending. Merliah finally got to meet her mother and got her own mermaid tail. Her mother gave her a necklace that she could make a wish on so she could either be a mermaid or a human whenever she wanted." "It made me think about coral because they mentioned it a lot because it was dying. It also made me think about merilia, something Calissa put in Merliah's necklace to protect her." "I sang along with the songs." "It made me wonder why Erris would want to lock up her sister and made me think about what it would be like to be a mermaid." "At the end, when Merliah did the big surfing competition, she really did cool tricks and got a perfect score and won - I liked that!" "The costumes were cool, especially their tails when they were underwater."