The Little Mermaid: Film Review
Rob Marshall‘s live-action remake of Disney’s beloved animation The Little Mermaid has finally arrived and it is a mixed bag.
Halle Bailey stars as Ariel, a mermaid who is fascinated by humans and “the above world”, even though her father King Triton (Javier Bardem) bans merpeople from going above the surface. After she rescues Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) from a shipwreck, they fall in love. Desperate to be with him, Ariel accepts a deal from the sea witch Ursula (Melissa McCarthy) in which she gives up her voice and mermaid abilities in exchange for legs. If she doesn’t receive true love’s kiss from Eric in three days, she will be enslaved to Ursula forever.
I cannot fault Bailey’s casting at all – she is perfect as Ariel. She captures her innocence, optimism and wide-eyed wonder. She also looks gorgeous and has the most beautiful singing voice. Her version of Part of Your World is so note-perfect and loyal to the original that it received a cheer from the crowd. Her Ariel has been rewritten a little to give her more agency and make her the hero of her own story, which is fine with me.
The most entertaining cast members were actually the voice actors. Daveed Diggs was hilarious as Sebastian, the chatty Caribbean crab. He had the most personality, his lines felt more inspired and creative and he made me laugh a lot. Awkwafina is also worth a mention as the gannet Scuttle (no longer a seagull). She just used her normal voice but it worked well for the character and I loved watching her and Diggs rap The Scuttlebutt, a song very obviously co-written by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
However, I must admit I didn’t love the underwater visuals. I understand that it’s realistic for it to look dark down there but it was just too murky and unclear. It is also very obvious that they didn’t film underwater. The film particularly looked bad and messy in the climactic scene with the super-sized Ursula. I wasn’t too keen on how the CGI parts of Ursula were rendered visually in general. I liked the film best when it was bright and colourful and captured the wonders of the ocean but it only really did that with the opening sequence and the fantastic Under the Sea musical number (which also got a round of applause).
The core classic songs – Part of Your World, Under the Sea, Poor Unfortunate Souls and Kiss the Girl – are loyal to the original, although a few lyrics have been changed to bring them up to date with current sensibilities. They are executed well and lived up to expectations. The new songs (written by Alan Menken and Miranda) don’t hold a torch to the classics. Eric’s solo, Wild Uncharted Waters, didn’t do it for me at all and For the First Time, another song for Bailey, was cute but forgettable. The Scuttlebutt was great fun though.
The Little Mermaid (1989) isn’t a Disney animation I feel too precious about (I haven’t seen it in about 20 years) so I enjoyed the remake overall, although it isn’t quite as magical as its predecessor.
In cinemas from Friday 26th May and on Disney+ from Wednesday 6th September