Barbie in a Mermaid Tale 2 captures both of this summer’s movie obsessions

This summer’s slate of big movies is flanked by two huge girlhood hallmarks. We have two major girlhood icons. The Little Mermaid, Disney’s latest live-action movie, which reimagines one of the most popular Disney Princesses. We also have Barbie,The theatrical debut of the iconic doll from history.

It’s an exciting time to be someone who grew up with Barbie dolls and Ariel’s adventures on screen. But for anyone who likes to mix their pleYou can also read about how to get started.ures, it’s an even more exciting time to remember that there’s a long tradition of Barbie asBarbie is a Mermaid on dozens and dozens direct-to video releases. Barbie was a mermaid not once, not twice, but three times. Five movies. While I won’t go into the details of all of them here (our big overview of Barbie movies is on the way soon enough), the best of them is Barbie in a Mermaid Tale 2, which isn’t just a good Barbie movie and a good mermaid movie, it’s a good movie in general.

Barbie in a Mermaid Tale 2 is the third of Barbie’s mermaid movies. (The first wasn’t the originalBarbie and the Mermaid TaleBut Barbie Fairytopia: MermaidiaThe first Barbie movie was a fairy that turns into a Mermaid. You actually don’t need to watch the first Mermaid Tale to follow the action — you just need to know that in it, surfer Merliah Summers (played by Barbie, voiced by Kelly Sheridan) finds out that she’s actually half-mermaid and the crown princess of an undersea kingdom. She rescues the kingdom from her evil aunt and reconnects with both her mother and her mermaid roots. Then, she launches her dual life of a surfer who is able to transform into a princess by wearing a magical necklace.

Image: Rainmaker Entertainment, Barbie Entertainment/Universal Studios Home Entertainment

In the sequel, Merliah is set to compete in a prestigious surfing competition — and reclaim her title from a new rival. She is unable to compete because the event falls on a day when her mother has requested that she attend an important tradition for mermaids. This is the reason they clash. This family tension is a cause of conflict Mermaid Tale 2 an edge over the original — and over a lot of mermaid media in general. (Though not Disney’s original Little Mermaid(, where there is a lot of family conflict to deal with.

Mermaids have been known to land on earth in many tales.The Little Mermaid, Aquamarine, Splash, etc.), but there’s also a separate subset of mermaid stories about humans learning they’re part mermaid (H2O, Thirteenth Year, The Little Mermaid II Return to the Sea). Most of the stories end without questioning what happened. The following are some of the most recent posts on this blog:. There should be an inherent cultural clash in spending your whole life as an ordinary human, only to find out that — surprise! — you’re actually part mythological being.

That’s where Mermaid Tale 2 Really shines. Merliah may be happy to reconnect with mother, and learn more about what it means to be a mermaid. But she’s also excited. You can learn more about it here.She is still human. She is a human with legs who lives on the land. She doesn’t understand how important the sacred traditions of mermaid culture are, but at the same time, her mother doesn’t get how important this one surf competition is to her. It’s a fantasy allegory of a story about a second generation immigrant, in which both sides have to work together to get along.

Image: Rainmaker Entertainment, Barbie Entertainment/Universal Studios Home Entertainment

Mermaid Tale 2Merliah’s rivalry with Kylie, and the way they interact is also very well done. Barbie movies are filled with tense, overlapping rivalries. However, not all Barbie rivalries have the same intensity. They’re often uneven, with the rival hating Barbie’s character (usually because of a boy) and Barbie’s character being uninterested in the conflict. Merliah, Kylie and other top athletes are all determined to succeed in their respective fields. That immediately makes their relationship richer — and means that when they’re eventually forced to work together and understand each other, their resulting friendship is all the more satisfying.

Mermaid Tale 2 came out in 2012, so it doesn’t quite generate the nostalgia of titles like Barbie the princess and the pauperYou can also find out more about Barbie as Rapunzel. At the same time, it also doesn’t have the recency of something like Barbie’s Epic Road TripNetflix Interactive Story is one of its best. So it’s likely that this is just one of the many direct-to-video Barbie movies that slipped through the cracks, at least for anyone who wasn’t in the exact age demographic for Barbie movies when it came out. Still, it’s a hidden gem for Barbie fans, representing the best of Barbie movies and the best of mermaid movies, and it captures the zeitgeist of this summer perfectly.

Barbie in a Mermaid Tale 2 Prime Video has the ability to stream and rent this movie.