Splash

It is a triumph for director Ron Howard, underwater photographer Jordan Klein, the writers and even the guy who made Hannah's latex tail (Robert Short). And it's surely the stairway to superstardom for costar John Candy and the lovely leading nyad. Splash, a departure for struggling Disney Studio, is as irresistible as the siren's song. [09 Mar 1984, p.23]

The movie that really showed Tom Hanks' promise as a deliverer of great comedy and heart-warming pathos. Read full review

Splash could have been shorter, but it probably couldn't have been much sweeter. Only purists will quibble with the blissfully happy ending, which has the lovers swimming through a shimmering underwater paradise that is supposed to be the bottom of the East River. Read full review

Before Director Ron Howard and his gargle of writers (Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel and Bruce Jay Friedman) arrange a satisfactorily romantic ending for their odd couple, they also manage to satirize everything from presidential politics to daytime television. They are a jostling, busily observant, fundamentally good-natured crew, and audiences are well advised to take a plunge on Splash. Read full review

Howard demonstrates exactly the correct soft touch, skirting the myriad problems of taste; and Hannah, who was the punkish replicant in Blade Runner, is somehow, very much, right there. Read full review

Splash betrays a slightly drippy side, but by and large it's a refreshing plunge into unabashed romantic fantasy and not to be missed for the sake of John Candy, who hits the screen like a playful fat diver cannonballing off the high board. [09 Mar 1984, p.D1]

Ron Howard, directing from a witty script by Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel and Bruce Jay Friedman, has fashioned an enchanting piece of fluff -- a romantic comedy that is truly romantic and truly comic, a deft blend of hip satire and fairy-tale charm. Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah have a lot to do with that charm. [12 Mar 1984, p.89]

This romantic comedy-fantasy about a mermaid (Daryl Hannah) who falls in love with a New Yorker (tom Hanks) has a friendly, tantalizing magic.

Splash, the story of a lovelorn bachelor who falls in love with a mermaid, deserves high marks both for technical verisimilitude and artistic merit. Read full review

Director Ron Howard has a good sense of the whimsical, and his film is sweet and unpretentious, though somewhat ribald when one realizes the studio from whence it sprang. Read full review

Splash is funny and gentle and quite entertaining, and there isn't a cynical moment in it. And unlikely as this may sound, Splash suggests that we had better keep an eye on Ron Howard, director. He is something special, too. [12 Mar 1984, p.C6]

Screenplay is marred by some glaring loopholes in its inner structure but story is a sweet takeoff on the innocence, mythology and sensuality associated with mermaids.

This mild 1984 comedy about a mermaid (Daryl Hannah) who falls in love with a New York City yuppie (Tom Hanks) isn't at all hard to take (John Candy, in a supporting role, is hilarious and original, and Hannah has a pleasant naive charm), but its appeal is based almost entirely on regression—a thematic regression to infancy (now endemic to the American cinema) and a stylistic regression to the most lulling kind of TV blandness. No wonder it's relaxing: it's a lullaby. Read full review

There is a funny movie lurking at the edges of Splash, and sometimes it even sneaks on screen and makes us smile. It's too bad the relentlessly conventional minds that made this movie couldn't have made the leap from sitcom to comedy. Read full review

This comedy-romance about a mermaid who falls in love with a man does have one thing going for it, the lithe shape and pleasant underwater smile of actress Daryl Hannah. Otherwise, it's a desperately unfunny film that wastes the talents of SCTV favorites John Candy and Eugene Levy. [08 June 1984, p.12]