Hey what's going on everyone? Dan here and today I'll be giving my review for the live action Little Mermaid.
Now before we get into the review, let me reiterate what I've said before, I personally don't have an issue if a fictional characters skin or race is changed. My thing is that if it served a purpose like adding layers to the character or using it to bring up an issue in society in the story then I feel it is justified. In the little mermaid's case, her changing race doesn't serve a purpose, she is a mermaid therefore her species itself would create a big enough divide in the story between mermaids and humans. This once again feels like corporations trying to pander and seem "inclusive" by changing already established characters. If they wanted to make an African-American mermaid, they should just make a new character in the Little Mermaid universe and make the story around her. Honestly they didn't even need to do this to the little mermaid because they already had an African-American princess who I feel is underrated and is a strong princess herself.
That's right, I'm talking about Tiana from Princess and the Frog. They tried to make Ariel pander to African-American community and give her this "empower women" checklist when in reality Disney had that type of princess already. One I feel gets overlooked because she came out in a time when Disney was transitioning away from 2D style to 3D so she basically got swept under the rug. This honestly should have been a live action Princess and the Frog movie, it would have been honestly more welcomed than this movie because Tiana is set in a more grounded setting where she has a real world job and deals with voodoo which wouldn't be hard to get VFX for. On top of that, she has defeated her main antagonist with her wits causing his plan to bite him back rather than how in this movie Ariel kills Ursula with a ship which by the way, Eric killed her in the original but I guess they wanted Ariel to be the one to kill her this time which feels like it goes against her character and is meant to check off the empower women checklist. All these things they did in this live action movie, they could have done all of that with Princess and the Frog, it would have made more sense and could have revitalized the Princess and the Frog to a new generation of children but they did not go that route, why? Because Ariel is a far more marketable character and her franchise is more marketable than Tiana and Princess and the Frog. This should show that Disney doesn't care about being inclusive or about social issues, they just care about pandering to social media and making money however they can.
Now for the movie itself, its okay. It wasn't the worst thing I've seen but honestly that is not saying much in a positive way. It does try to redo the original live action movie, but then it has moments where it tries to be its own thing or funny but just completely misses the mark in both ways. It's not as funny as the original and it does its own thing to where you wouldn't even know this was meant to be the little mermaid. The only times I laughed were when I saw the CGI sea creatures because they looked uncanny like Sebastian or Flounder (who is honestly adorable even with the uncanny CGI). The writers must have been out to lunch because the writing has no comedic timing and pacing can be all over the place at times. Like when Eric was trying to talk serious with Ariel about his upbringing and how he feels trapped, Grimsby comes in out of nowhere and ruins the moment which I think they wanted it to be funny but it felt unnecessary. Or the singing, Under the Sea is sung mainly by Sebastian and for some reason Ariel gets in on it when it doesn't make sense and it honestly made the song less enjoyable to me.
The cast themselves did a good job for what they had to work with. Hailey Balle I don't think made a good Ariel, honestly I'm not a big fan of this girl especially after her disrespectful comments at last years Oscars about animation and it shows in this movie she does not respect animation in the slightest, she's a product of the industry in my eyes. Melissa McCarthy as Ursula was probably my favorite portrayal because she's actually a little funny and she actually stayed true to the characters source material. John Hauer-King as Prince Eric was good I liked his portrayal and his dramatic scenes and singing made me laugh because the shots done looked like a Calvin Klein commercial, a cologne commercial or a VEVO music video from YouTube. Besides those, I like Eric's story about him being adopted into Royalty and I wish they would have placed more emphasis on that part of the movie. I gotta give a shoutout to Jacob Tremblay as Flounder, he did a great job as Flounder. No matter what movie he is in, Tremblay gives a great performance like in Wonder, Luca, and Good Boys.
Fun fact: Lin-Manuel Miranda helped produced this film which explains why I'm getting very Hamilton vibes from this film. Like it feels like a Broadway play being filmed if that makes any sense at all.
Overall, this movie was another example of Disney making live action remakes of beloved animated films meant to be a cashgrab that panders to certain demographics and nothing else. It had some good elements in it but wasn't enough to save this movie. I still think a live action Princess and the Frog movie would have been a better concept and movie than this version of the little mermaid.
Rating this film I give it:
5/10
I do not recommend this film unless you need it for a family movie night or to go out on a date like I did but other than that, just watch the original animated movie its a better experience and the great quality of that film is what kicked off the Disney renaissance in the first place, a magic this movie wasn't able to recapture. That's all I have for today
see ya!
