I’ve never really understood Disney’s sheer fascination with rehashing their popular animated content from years past into brand new, live action remakes. It’s a strange trend that doesn’t tend to breed much creativity. Unfortunately for Disney, these films have tended to be pretty bad. Animation allows for so much life and creativity not only in backdrop and setting but in character design and actions that live action simply doesn’t have. Mulan, The Lion King and Aladdin are all recent examples of Disney remakes that just lost all the life and creativity when they converted to live action. Fortunately for us audience goers though, The Little Mermaid, and especially Halle Bailey, has seemingly broken that trend.
If you’re unfamiliar with the story to The Little Mermaid, the film follows Ariel (Halle Bailey), a mermaid and daughter of King Triton (Javier Bardem). Ariel is fascinated by humans but is forbidden by her father to every go near them or the surface. When Ariel strikes a deal with Ursula, a weird half-octopus-woman played by Melissa McCarthy, to grow legs and be with the humans after she saves one (Prince Eric, played by Jonah Hauer-King), she has 3 days to kiss him or risk being trapped forever to Ursula as a mermaid.
Going into the movie, I was not ready for how long the runtime was in comparison to the original. This version sits at 2h 15m, where the original is a mere 1h 23m. That’s a huge jump and I was nervous how it would play out on screen. Fortunately for me and the rest of us, they focused a lot on taking that extra time to flesh out Ariel’s relationships with her friends, family and especially allowing her relationship with King Eric to develop.
There were no new storylines added for this film, which is honestly such a relief. I was nervous we were going to see something new that would’ve broken up the film’s pacing, but the filmmakers did a great job staying faithful to the original while adding enough to be able to justify a remake. In fact, the extra time on developing these relationships helped the film tremendously.
When it comes to the film’s main event, being the performances of Halle Bailey and Jonah Hauer-King both individually and collectively, I was highly impressed. Bailey is absolutely phenomenal, gorgeous and embodies the spirit that Ariel carried in the original tremendously. I also have to note her ability to act and steal scenes even when she couldn’t speak. The power of voice is oft overlooked, but seeing how impactful a performance can still be when the character is silent is a testament to the actress. For a relative newcomer, she’s proving to be a powerhouse lead actress and I am excited for her future projects. Not to mention she has a tremendous voice and did the original songs justice.
Hauer-King has just the right amount of youthful energy and spirit to make his character interesting. He was charismatic almost to a fault and it honestly really worked. Their dynamic together is incredible and they have some great chemistry, which is the pivotal factor the film needed to succeed.
With the good comes bad, however, and The Little Mermaid is not without its faults. While the visuals were mostly solid, the inevitability of live action is that the CGI creatures lost all their life from the original. Sebastian and Flounder especially are pretty rough, to the point that when they came out on screen for the first time, my girlfriend, sitting next to me, had to hold back laughter. It was also the first thing we mentioned to each other when we left the theater.
I was also extremely unimpressed with the new songs Lin Manuel Miranda brought to The Little Mermaid. I expect much more from the acclaimed composer, but this just wasn’t it. The Scuttlebut song, which carried his signature rap style, was most notably out of place and, paired with Awkwafina’s cringe inducing vocals, just felt so wrong. I would have much preferred if they stuck to the originals, which were all performed really well.
Final Thoughts
The Little Mermaid does enough to embody the spirit of the original while adding enough new substance to justify not only it’s nearly an hour longer runtime, but the film’s production in the first place. Halle Bailey is really great, and she’ll be an icon for little kids seeing this movie for years to come. While not without its faults, it served the original IP properly and will serve as a fun, family friendly watch that can give the magic the original did to a whole new generation.
