The Little Mermaid (2023) Review

The Little Mermaid (2023) Review

The second Disney live action remake of the year, The Little Mermaid has swam its way into theaters. I know these Disney live action remakes make a lot of people frustrated, rightfully so but this one that I’ve actually been excited for. And the early buzz for it wasn’t terrible, it seems like people have been enjoying it. So how is the movie? Is it actually a good movie? Let’s get started!

NOTE: I’m not a big fan of the original animated movie. I’ve seen it several times over the years, but it’s never been an animated movie that’s gravitated towards me all that much. The Lion King, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast are films that I appreciate more than The Little Mermaid. 

The Good:

Right off the bat the thing that I think works about this movie is Ariel herself. Halle Bailey does a great job as the title character. There’s three parts of the character of the character that she needs to get right. First up, she needs to be charming, naive, and quirky and I feel like she pulls all of it off. She you can buy her as this mermaid that wants to be apart of the human world. You like her as a character, even though she’s going against her father’s wishes you still care about her a great deal. Second, she needs to have good romantic chemistry with Prince Eric and I thought they did. I don’t know the actor who played Prince Eric, but they play really well of of another. Third, she’s needs to be able to sing and does that. When she sings “Part of Your World” or some of the other new songs in the film it’s convincing. There’s no autotune used for her, she can sing very loudly and it’s believable. I know the internet has a LOT of backlash towards her because they race swapped Ariel. If you don’t like that, fair enough I don’t see why the color of her skin should change your thoughts on the movie. She’s the best part about the movie, if she wasn’t as good as she was I don’t know if they movie would have worked as well. And of the Disney live action remakes that have a princess in them, I think Halle Bailey’s Ariel is the best princess in one of these live action remakes. 

But it’s not Halle Bailey that is great in the movie, everybody else in the film does a solid job here. I mentioned this earlier but I really liked the dynamic and chemistry between Ariel and Eric in the film. And part of that is because the Prince Eric actor is fun and charming. And you really do buy into the romance between these two people. Another one to talk about here is Melissa McCarthy as Urusla. I feel like she’s going to be one of the ones that people will be talking about. And I thought she was really good in here, it looks like she’s having a lot of fun delivering this company performance. And I’m not somebody that gravitates towards Melissa McCarthy all that much, from what I’ve seen of her…this is the best she’s been. Daveed Diggs and Awkwafina provide solid voice work for Sebastian and Scuttle, both are a lot of fun. And I liked the dynamic between the two of them in this movie. And since Daveed Diggs’ Sebastian has to do a lot of singing, you need somebody that can pull it off and Diggs does that really well. 

Another thing here is that these live action remakes have been criticized for being lifeless and bland remakes of the animated films. I don’t feel like that criticism applies to this movie, this is one of the more unique ones. It’s one of the ones where I feel like the director has a more distinct style to it, it uses some really cool transition shots in the film. It would use the ocean environment as ways to transition from scene to scene in some clever ways. The director of the film is Rob Marshall who has a long track record with musical films. He directed Mary Poppins Returns from a few years back and directed Chicago from over 20 years ago. And those have very vibrant musical numbers to them. And I feel like Rob Marshall applies those tricks to this movie, and it helps it out a good bit. Especially when so many recent Disney films, mainly Marvel movies feel like they are directed by a committee. Where it feels like it has less of a director’s vision but more of a studio’s vision. This movie feels like it was directed by one person, Rob Marshall. And they add in some new material that I thought worked and fleshed things out. Most notable with Prince Eric is that I feel like fleshes out his character a good bit. They add some stuff in to make him more layered then in the animated film. 

Tying back to what I said earlier, but I thought the songs and musical numbers were very well done. And again like I said earlier, Rob Marshall was the perfect person to bring these sequences to life. The sequence is so fun and dynamic, filled with colors and cool imagery in every shot. “Under the Sea '' and “Kiss the Girl '' would be the two that stand out for me, they just looked really cool. Mainly “Under the Sea '' since it is daylight and it’s…under the sea they can use the ocean environment to its advantage. And just the songs themselves are great and memorable. I would argue that The Little Mermaid has one of the best catalog of songs in Disney history. So because of that, it makes the sequences better when you like the songs. Now I know a lot of people have been criticizing the new songs, they were written by Lin Manuel-Miranda and I didn’t mine them. They added in a song for Prince Eric to sing, it felt out of place with the film. That was the one that I felt like didn’t work quite as well as it otherwise should have. The big issue I’ve been hearing about these new songs is that they aren’t as memorable as the other songs. And part of that is true, but I feel like it’s an unfair statement because the songs from the animated film are iconic. That has been around for 34 years now, they are classics that we’ve all heard several times over the years. So I don’t think that’s a fair criticism about the songs. 

Finally, you can definitely tell that this is a Disney production. What I mean by that is when Disney makes a live action blockbuster they pour a lot of money into it. Some of it works and looks great, other times it doesn’t look as good. I think this is one of the times where it does look really good. The stuff at the castle in the back half of the movie, I don’t know if they shot on location or if that was CGI but it looked really cool and gorgeous. I heard some people talking about the underwater sequence where they thought it didn’t look as good. I didn’t have any issues with it, I think King Triton didn’t look the best. But the environment during the musical numbers and even when they are swimming around looks really cool. 

The Bad:

When it comes to these live action remakes they want to try and find a way to be true to the animation but add in new stuff. And this movie does add some stuff in, mainly with Prince Eric. They add in three new songs and a couple more character dynamics. And because of that the run time of the movie has to be extended. So this movie is about 40-50 minutes longer than the animated film and you feel that. This movie is only 2 hours and 15 minutes long, so it’s not terribly long but you really do feel the run time. You feel that they are stretching things out for a bit too long, some scenes last a bit too long. And I feel like if they made this movie more like 2 hours long, maybe even a bit shorter it would have worked better. I feel like there’s a couple of musical numbers, a couple of gags that maybe didn’t need to be there. 

Another thing here, I know he’s a great actor but Javier Bardem as Triton just felt off. I know that he’s an Oscar winning actor that delivered a fantastic performance in No Country for Old Man. But here I thought he fell a bit flat, and something was fishy about his performance. I don’t know if it’s the fact that Javier Bardem hasn’t done a lot of blockbusters like this before. He’s done a lot more dramas in his career, so maybe the adjustment of that was part of it. I get that the nature of Triton is that he’s not a big flashy character, he’s supposed to be one note. But as you’re watching it, Javier Bardem is easily the weak link of the film. 

Finally, this isn’t a spoiler but it’s a piece of information that’s added in that I don’t think was in the animated film. But just in case it’s new, I’m not going to say any specifics about the information. But there’s something revealed about Urusla’s relationship with Ariel that I thought was interesting. I feel like there was more to explore there, if you wanted to add in more stuff I feel like adding more about this in. If they took out all of the Prince Eric songs and new characters and focused on this, I could have been done for that. 

Final Thoughts: As somebody who has never been the biggest fan of the animated film, I rather dug this film. It’s not fantastic, it certainly has its flaws. But I thought this was an enjoyable live action remake, that is one of the better ones. Halle Bailey as Ariel is great casting, she’s so captivating, fun, and charming in the lead role. The rest of the cast is fun and charming and the source material makes for a solid adventure to go on. I get that you might be burned by Disney, give this one a shot because I think it’s worth your time.

The Score: 8.4/10 (B)