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The Little Mermaid Movie Review

The Little Mermaid is a 2023 musical fantasy film directed by Rob Marshall and starring Halle Bailey. It’s a surprisingly competent remake.

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“You shouldn’t have to give up your voice to be heard“

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I wasn’t expecting to like this movie as much as I did given that Disney’s marketing for it was truly atrocious. But the end result is better than expected, even the music and the visuals fared much better than in the promotional material. The resulting film is one of the better live-action Disney remakes and one of the most underrated.

The original is a five-star movie for me and one of my absolute favorites, so obviously this remake could never compete with that masterpiece. But most of the signature plot points are retained and the characters are faithful to the source material. Let’s start with Ariel herself. Much has been made about her being race-bent and I am sick and tired of this argument from both sides, so I will not further comment upon it. I will just talk about the actress and how the protagonist herself fared.

They somewhat deepened the character and made her more heroic and proactive while still retaining her warmth, kindness and grace. Halle Bailey was actually very good in the role. She wasn’t amazing and her singing is definitely stronger than her acting, but she did bring somewhat of a movie star quality to the role as she was radiant in her smile in particular. She was very likable and charming, which was the most important thing here.

But I actually preferred Prince Eric myself. Jonah Hauer-King was excellent and quite underrated as the prince as he was good-looking, highly charismatic and charming, perfectly accompanying Bailey herself. The two made for such a wonderful couple and if there is one thing that this remake does better than the original it’s the romance. Wow, was it romantic. So many scenes with them meeting, reading maps and going on a carriage ride were so sweet and incredibly romantic, making for such an endearing watch.

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Eric was significantly deepened in this version with a stronger arc, though his backstory was underexplained and rushed. The historical elements in the picture are definitely there unlike before, but still they were too vague to make a bigger difference, though the added emphasis on the relationship between humans and merpeople did make for a more epic and complex story. The mother needed more development, but I loved what they did with the servant character, who was so inherently warm and just a lovely human being. His interactions with Eric were so endearing.

If there is one character iteration here that is just as terrific as the original one it has to be Ursula herself. I was skeptical about Melissa McCarthy first, but she ended up being one hell of a strong take on this iconic villain. It is obvious that she is in love with the creation, which resulted in a performance that is so delightfully over-the-top, campy and just fun.

On the other end of the spectrum are King Triton and all the animals. Javier Bardem was quite terrible here as this was clearly just a paycheck for him. He was lazy and boring, which is not who Triton should be. The heart of the original was the father-daughter relationship, which was here sidelined and poorly done, which made the Eric-Ariel relationship the prime one in this instance.

As for the animal sidekicks, I did not care for them. Daveed Diggs was actually quite good as Sebastian and the character is still very funny and delightful, but the original creation was my favorite personality in that movie while here he wasn’t as amazing. The designs that they did on all the animals were too realistic and just plain bad, especially for this crab guy as he looked atrocious. Why make a fantasy movie with realistic animals? It makes no freaking sense. Flounder himself is forgettable while Scuttle was nowhere near as funny as before, though Awkwafina was a solid casting choice for the bird.

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Let’s talk about the soundtrack. ‘The Little Mermaid’ has probably the greatest of all Disney soundtracks. The remake cashed in on that greatness to a degree, though the quality of these renditions varied wildly. Fathoms Below was solid. Under the Sea was colorful, fun and overall solidly executed, though nowhere near as iconic as it was before. Kiss the Girl was among the better-handled numbers as it was just as hopelessly romantic and catchy with the humor also being at its best here.

As for Part of Your World, it was solid. The full number was changed quite a bit and although Bailey’s singing was fantastic, the higher notes were unnecessary here and the emotional connection that I have with the original was just not retained here. But one song that was as good and maybe even better than before was Poor Unfortunate Souls as Melissa’s singing was surprisingly strong and the entire sequence was very colorful, cool and powerful.

As for the three new songs, they were all weak. The Scuttlebutt was atrocious. I hate rap and this was your typically annoying Lin-Manuel Miranda filler song that was pointless. For the First Time was also unnecessary and so bland. Eric got himself a song here due to a prolonged screen time and this song fared best. It’s not great and it’s far from catchy or memorable, but it was well choreographed, shot and very well sung. It was quite similar to Evermore from the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ remake.

This Little Mermaid ended up having solid special effects. The underwater scenes are quite colorful at times, though nowhere near as majestic as they were in the original or in the Avatar movies. The character designs were mostly terrible, but at least the movie looked mostly serviceable in its effects and especially in its real location work, which was quite welcome here. The castle and the scenes on the shore were quite appealing.

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The runtime of almost two and a half hours wasn’t necessary for this story, but the added backstories and little moments on land were worth it. That’s the problem with these remakes – they even improve on the story in some bits and pieces, but ultimately in over-explaining everything and just not being animated, they lose most of the magic of the source material. But the humor was surprisingly solid here and the action sequences made the film more epic and cinematic. I also really liked the changed ending and how they made both Ariel and Eric true adventurers at heart.