The Little Mermaid

Now I am someone who has constantly been disappointed by Disney’s live action remakes. Cinderella was magical, Beauty and the Beast was mediocre at best, the Lion King was simply terrible and here comes the Little Mermaid. My favorite Disney princess movie as a child. I used to make my family call me Ariel, I wouldn’t respond to my name. I was fully convinced that I was going to be a Mermaid when I grew up. The minute the trailer was released I started crying. I’ve been a blubbering mess at every trailer I’ve seen and I truly couldn’t wait for this movie.

Let's start with the most enchanting parts first; Halle Bailey. That woman was flawless. Unbelievably beautiful with a truly angelic voice, I could not stop smiling like a goober every time she was on screen. She truly has the magic of a Disney Princess. I fully believe that without being able to speak the prince fell in love with her, she is captivating and was easily the best part of the movie.

With the exception of the new (and questionable) songs the movie was basically a shot for shot remake. So everyone who grew up with Ariel was definitely happy but it was visually stunning for an entirely new generation of little princesses. My main concern going in was the scene for Under the Sea due to the very realistic sea creature designs. But the production did a great job and it was a beautiful and fun scene.

Daveed Digs did an incredible job as Sebastian. The weirdly realistic crab was made charismatic through Daveed’s voice acting, he was a perfect casting choice.

I also really loved the writing for Grimsby, he gets the best wingman award as he helps Eric realize that he’s in love with Ariel and eventually helps him get the girl.

Now onto the less than incredible parts of the movie. Let's start with Melissa McCarthy as Ursula. Now she was not bad, during Poor Unfortunate Souls they relied very heavily on her acting to cover the fact that she can’t sing but I didn’t hate it. It was just baseline, and nothing special. There were absolutely better casting choices out there but it's fine.

During Kiss the Girl was my first real disappointing moment in the movie, as this is a really beautiful ensemble song and they completely cut the ensemble. Now I do not want to hear any money excuses. Disney is the biggest media corporation in the world. There is no excuse for not having an ensemble in that song. Daveed did great but the song fell flat because there were quite literally 20 other voices missing.

Getting worse we have the new songs. Now I know that Disney wanted to be eligible for an original song Oscar but not a single song they wrote was remotely Oscar worthy and to favor those songs they didn’t use songs from the Broadway show. Halle would have absolutely crushed Beyond My Wildest Dreams and If Only, and they wrote a poormans Beyond My Wildest Dreams and it was not good. Halle was perfect, the song was lazy.

Jonah Haer-King clearly has a good singing voice as is evident by the last 2 big notes of Wild Uncharted Waters, however I will blame whoever the vocal coach was on set, the rest of the song was…not great. So for those of you without years of vocal lessons to tell you why it was lacking; His tone was very swallowed this was due to several physical things like his tongue being all tucked up in the back of his throat causing his soft palate not to be raised, him not opening his mouth and his attempt at sounding “British”. Now think “tall” or “British” is something we hear a lot as singers. I just don’t think they taught him how to do that properly. So his very nice, natural tone was caged in by someone’s unqualified and bad vocal coaching. This is unfortunately not the first time we’ve seen this in movie musicals, Hugh Jackman has a Tony Award but Les Mis was an embarrassment to his career. We used to watch it in choir to pick apart what they were doing wrong…

Last but not least, Awkwafina. Now I am simply tired of hearing her voice, she’s a bad actress. Not mediocre, not overrepresented, just simply bad. Her song was the absolute worst part of the movie. It was not only unnecessary but it fully broke the tone of the film. Her whole song could have (and should have) been a single line of dialogue.

Not a hard criticism but I did miss Les Poissons, not necessary to the plot but a fun song. Totally understand why they cut it, makes perfect sense. I just like it.

Overall I think the movie was great, I cried several times and when I rewatch it on Disney+ I will simply fast forward past Awkwafina’s song and all will be right with the world. Halle is magical and everyone should go see this movie as many times as you possibly can. I think this movie would be a 10/10 if we casted better then McCarthy and Awkwafina and taking off a point for each of them gives us an 8/10…but Halle was so good I’m adding a half a point back on so final rating for the live action Little Mermaid is 8.5/10. All 3 versions of The Little Mermaid are incredible.