Little Mermaid Review: Huge disappointment from Disney

Little Mermaid: It hurts more when you try to compare this to the animated version

Little Mermaid: Disney is now venturing into live-action remakes of its earlier animation classics. It tried its luck with Aladdin. Now it’s Ariel’s turn. This outing, for a lack of better terminology, looks a lot like a cross between Finding Nemo and Aquaman.

Though Disney’s earlier animation was loosely based on the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen’s work, this outing is the live-action version of its animation. It is a musical.

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To the uninitiated, the story revolves around Ariel (Halle Bailey), a mermaid, who wants to experience the life of land. She is the youngest daughter of King Triton (Javier Bardem) who rules the underwater kingdom Atlantica. He is overprotective of Ariel and does not want her anywhere near land.

One not so fine day, there is a storm and the ship carrying Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) wrecks. Ariel saves Eric and falls madly in love with the young prince. She seeks the help of her aunt Ursula (Melissa McCarthy), a witch with a lower body of an octopus, to become a human. Ursula helps Ariel.

Aiming to take over Atlantica, Ursula tells Ariel that she has three days to receive the proverbial ‘true love’s kiss’ or Ariel would belong to her. What is the point of a Disney movie if there are no speaking animals, birds, or fish? So, you have Scuttle the norther gannet (Awkwafina), Flounder the fish (Jacob Tremblay) and Sebastian the crab (Daveed Diggs, whose Jamaican accent is superficial). Does Ariel succeed in winning her love, does Ursula succeed in taking over Atlantica, what will happen to Eric is what the story is about.

Disney has lost the plot. Andersen’s version dealt with sacrifice and about doing the right thing by Ariel. That story also dealt with realization on the part of Ariel. Here you have a spoilt Ariel getting all that she wants. Director Rob Marshall could have well used the original story rather than sticking to the unrealistic fairy tale ending.

The outing is lackluster and falls prey to the culture wars. The VFX is not up to mark and the underwater sequences do not look natural. The team could have taken a leaf out of Aquaman (Avatar 2 would have been over budget).

The songs are mediocre, the only exception being Sabastian’s underwater number. Melissa McCarthy is at her sinister best. It is she and Art Malik as Grimsby who perform well in their limited screen time. Hauer-King is robotic while Bardem is likable.

Watching the 135-minute outing makes one wonder whether the editor Wyatt Smith was mechanically going through the process. Halle Bailey looks completely out of place.

Barring, to an extent, The Beauty and the Beast, all of Disney’s recent live-action adaptations were colossal disappointments. It hurts more when you try to compare this to the animated version. The 1989 version was soulful. The dance sequences under water were comic and simultaneously good to watch.

This is a huge disappointment coming from the animation giant. The Little Mermaid should not have surfaced.