The Little Mermaid (2023)

I have been wanting to see The Little Mermaid ever since grown adults started crying and spitting their dummies out over the fact that the lead role had gone to a young black woman. Because, apparently, mermaids can appear onscreen in various incarnations, but making them non-white is an affront to the firmly-held beliefs people suddenly claimed to have about fictional citizens of the sea. Despite wanting to see it, I didn’t make time for it while it was at the cinema because I just cannot work up any enthusiasm for the ongoing Disney remake factory (some may claim this is less a remake, more a reworking of the source material, and I have to politely disagree).

People should already know the story, but here is the very basic summary. A mermaid named Ariel (Halle Bailey) keeps spending her time thinking about humans and the world above the surface of the sea, much to the chagrin of her father, King Triton (Javier Bardem). She then falls in love with a human, Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King), and ends up signing up to a Faustian pact with the scheming Ursula (Melissa McCarthy). Ariel gets to walk on land, giving her a chance to meet the Prince, but she has her lovely voice removed, as well as the memory of the deal made with Ursula.

Directed by the very capable Rob Marshall, The Little Mermaid has a number of pleasantly surprising positives. The casting of Bailey is one of the biggest, with the actress proving to be a wonderful choice for the lead role, presenting herself as believably lovely and tuneful (when she has her voice). The production design throughout, the overall look of the film whenever showing the underwater world, is very good, and there are a number of fairly realistic CG creations accompanying our lead character on her journey. It’s also worth mentioning that there are supporting roles for the excellent Noma Dumezeni and Art Malik.

The script isn’t particularly great, with David Magee responsible for the thankless task of updating the animated film while trying to balance the familiar and the fresh. He doesn’t succeed, sadly, with the familiar moments just ensuring that viewers will remember how much they love the earlier incarnation, and he’s also hampered by the fact that things have to come crashing to a halt at one point for a horrible and lifeless song to be sung by the bland Prince Eric. A few other songs work better, but they’re mostly the ones lifted from the earlier film (although Awkwafina, who voices the seagull named Scuttle, gets a very fun number).

Dull Prince aside, I enjoyed almost everyone else here, whether just in voice form or more fully shown onscreen. Daveed Diggs is a decent Sebastian, Jacob Tremblay is a good fit for Flounder, and Awkwafina is a lot of fun. McCarthy is someone I always tend to enjoy onscreen, and I am happy to say that her portrayal of Ursula is as entertaining as I expected it to be.

All in all, despite this feeling just as unnecessary as every other time that Disney does this kind of thing, The Little Mermaid is enjoyable enough. It has a better variety of representation and cultural texture than the animated film, but it suffers from the inherent disadvantage of turning cute cartoons into “real-life” imagery.

6/10

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Ani-MAY-tion Month: The Little Mermaid (1989)

For anyone who doesn't know, The Little Mermaid is all about Ariel (Jodi Benson), a mermaid daughter of Triton (Kenneth Mars). Ariel may live under the sea, but she spends most of her time scavenging for items that have been lost to the deep waters by the humans above. When she sees, and falls in love with, a handsome man named Eric (Christopher Daniel Barnes) she wants to be able to go on land and spend some time with him. The tricky Ursula (Pat Carroll) can make that happen. She transforms Ariel's tail into legs in exchange for one thing - her voice. Ariel then has three days to get Eric to kiss her, or she'll be stuck in a very bad situation indeed.

A fantastic outing from Disney, based on a tale by Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid is the studio doing what it does best. The animation is delightful, the characters are pretty great (with a crab named Sebastian - voiced by Samuel E. Wright - stealing a couple of scenes), the songs are all quite enjoyable, and it teaches younger viewers not to . . . . . . give up their own voices for the sake of love, or something like that. I may be joking, or I may not.

The voice cast all do well, with other noteworthy performances coming from Buddy Hackett and Jason Marin as, respectively, a seagull named Scuttle and a little fish named Flounder, and it helps that Ariel is one of the best female Disney leads in decades, although older viewers may be a bit miffed by just how quickly she falls head over heels in love and is willing to do whatever it takes to be with the dashing Eric.

Ron Clements and John Musker are the men who get to take most of the credit, as the directors and main writers of the thing, but this is really a team effort. Alan Menken and Howard Ashman handle the music and lyrics, a veritable smorgasbord of animators handle the visuals, and there's every other department to consider. That is, of course, the case with every movie, but The Little Mermaid gets so much right in every way that it's really worth trying to give everyone equal praise.

Despite my love for the movie, it's not perfect. There's at least one song that I thought fell a bit flat, and the final act is strangely anticlimactic. In fact, it all feels quite rushed and ill-conceived, which is a great shame. Its not enough to drag the movie down too far, but it is enough to stop it from being in the very top tier of Disney movies. It does, however, still come close.

8/10

http://www.amazon.com/Little-Mermaid-Diamond-Jodi-Benson/dp/B00C7607FS/ref=sr_1_3?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1399734188&sr=1-3&keywords=the+little+mermaid