Help! I'm A Fish

With:

Alan Rickman, Morten Kerrn Nielsen, Nis Bank-Mikkelsen, Soren Saetter-Lassen, Terry Jones

Directed by:

M Hegner, Michael Hegner, S Fjeldmark

A sweet, charming and entertaining little cartoon from Denmark originally titled Hjaelp, Je Er En Fisk - it's true, I'm telling you! - which has been re-dubbed with English voices for UK distribution.

Fly is a boy who goes fishing, taking with him his little sister Stella and his podgy cousin Chuck. But they find a cave belonging to a loopy old professor (voiced by Terry Jones) and the kids end up drinking his secret potion for turning people into fish.

But then some real fish drink the prof's fish-into-human antidote and assume human ambitions, led by the sinister shark-sidekick Joe - a terrific turn from Alan Rickman. It flags a bit when Rickman's superbly wicked character isn't on, but it's a nice little holiday film nonetheless.

Help! I'm a Fish is a modest, well-drawn animated comedy about the subterranean adventures of a cocky teenager, his little sister and their wimpish intellectual cousin, who are transformed respectively into a small shark, a baby starfish and a jelly fish after drinking a mad professor's potion.

I think I prefer it to the sentimental Disney version of Hans Andersen's The Little Mermaid, though unless you read the credits you'd never know that this film was made in Andersen's native country. The soundtrack 'voice talents', except for Alan Rickman as a villainous pilot fish and Terry Jones as the eccentric ichthyologist Professor MacKrill (geddit?), are all American, and 'Check it out, we're all fish, isn't that cool?' is a fairly typical line.