- Directed by Rob Marshall
- May 8, 2023 (Dolby Theatre) / May 26, 2023 (United States)
- Loosely based on the 1837 fairy tale The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen and the 1989 Disney animated film The Little Mermaid
A mermaid princess who has fallen for a human makes a deal with a sea witch to become human.
At one point Disney when they made live action films did relatively original creations like The Shaggy Dog or The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. Now they dig deep into their vault of greatest animated hits. Some have been better than others, but all run the risk of being compared to what came before. Enter this iteration of The Little Mermaid.
This version of the story is just really hard movie to watch. I’m not talking from a narrative perspective. It’s just hard to see what’s going on. The animated film was bright and vibrant. It was a fantasy version of the ocean in just about every aspect. This film is so dark that Zack Snyder would be saying “You’ve gone too far!”
The poor lighting, especially under the ocean I guess is an attempt at realism. Aquaman got it right. That movie was a nice balance between making you feel those characters were moving through water and looking bright and vibrant. Don’t be afraid to engage in the fanciful. After all, you have talking animals and mermaids and evil sea witches.
This unnecessary realism extends to the animal characters. While it works with Scuttle (Awkwafina), Sebastian (Daveed Diggs) and Flounder (Jacob Tremblay) look rather disturbing for some reason when they start talking. I can take a talking horse or even a talking lion but when you start having sea creatures talk it just appears to be difficult to animate in a way that’s not weird.
Overall, the movie adds nothing special to the narrative of the original. With an additional 52 or so minutes of extra runtime it does not enhance the story it is all built around. I do feel that the original The Little Mermaid did move a little too quickly and could’ve used a little bit of extra time but nearly an extra hour? Interestingly all this added footage just makes the movie drag. I had to pause this Little Mermaid and was surprised that it was only about thirty minutes in. It felt like so much more.
One thing you need to understand when making a film is what to keep in and what to kick out. I don’t know how much they kicked out, but they kept in so much more than they should have. All those extras brought the story to a crawl. This movie retained the general plot of the original but there were extras randomly inserted into the movie to stretch things out. And they interfered with the steady pace.
This version does go a bit into environmentalism but not too deep. There is commentary on corral destruction and general pollution with those instances stick out like sore thumbs in a fantasy film based off of an animated fantasy film based off a fairytale. When it comes to Triton (Javier Bardem) he has some serious bigotry over all of humanity because humans killed his wife (alluded to in the opener) but Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) changes his views based on…? Not exactly sure. The thing is this is all handled on a very superficial level.
Most of the performers do okay with their musical numbers. The real standout is Halle Bailey as Ariel whose voice equals that of Jodi Benson from the animated film. Bailey has an absolutely amazing voice and kills it whenever she sings. But as an actress she’s okay. Not terrible but she lacks chemistry with ANYBODY! She has no emotional connection with either of the two which are supposed to be the characters that she cares the most about!
Then again everybody else only made it to turn in an okay performance other than Awkwafina as Scuttle who is quite possibly the worst character in the entire film and perhaps any Disney affiliated production to this day. Then again Awkwafina is not exactly an endearing performer. She can get quite painful to deal with at times.
The character of Eric is barely a participant in the story. Ariel rescues him, and then he does really nothing. As a character, he’s relatively two dimensional. He is some commoner who was adopted by the local royalty because they found him. That’s it. He wasn’t the son of a duke or a duchess or any type of royalty who died. Sure. Why not. Huh? That is also in addition to Ursula (Melissa McCarthy) being made Triton’s sister. I do not recall that being in the original.
Much has been made of lyrical changes to songs. Those are not for the better and do nothing to improve the songs. They just make them weaker at least in the instances of “Kiss the Girl” or “Poor Unfortunate Souls.” Both are made significantly less impactful and all to please people that had to find something to be offended over.
There is plenty of new music. It’s okay but somehow those pale in comparison to the downgraded versions of the original songs. And who thought that Awkwafina rap was a good idea? It was by far the worst bit of music in this entire film and quite possibly any Disney production.
Not much in this that sparks your interest in order to hold your eyes on the movie. It might be different if this was a straight adaption of the original film. It’s a story that goes through the motions but doesn’t try to actually be creative. It is bland and soulless. It is dark and lacks the vibrance of the original.
This version of The Little Mermaid is a by the numbers movie. It adds nothing special to the original concept. What it does add is a lot of extra material that slows the story down. The only reason to watch this is for what they did different but you’re not going to enjoy yourself. Skip!
Warren Watched A Movie 