Another year, another Disney live-action remake of their beloved animated classic, just so they can keep the copyright on those characters and sell you the same merchandise in new, updated skin. This year, the wise “wheel of all the movies we haven’t remade yet” stopped at The Little Mermaid, and this film made the news instantly when the casting was announced due to Disney making this fictional mermaid black, portrayed by Halle Bailey. Unfortunately, in the year 2023, you can imagine why it made the news, and you can also imagine the “certain people” who were “very upset” (to put it mildly) by this the most. Anyway, enough about racists. I didn’t catch this movie at the cinemas, but I heard “okay-ish” things to be intrigued, and when I finally checked it out myself, it was… overall, I have to put “meh”, but it might be the most complex “meh” of my entire life.
Let’s start with the positives and, by far, the biggest and (quite frankly) the only thing Disney did correctly was to bet their money on Halle Bailey. Not only can you tell she loves the story and is stoked to be a part of this, but this girl will be a star. She has a presence, feels royal (a great choice for a princess), and, most importantly, can sing. And I mean, she can sing where she sends shivers down your spine. Halle might be tiny (IMDb has her height at 5′ 2″ (or for us Europeans, 1.57 m)), but she has got some lungs and voice on her. Every time she sang, this film was worth watching. I can’t judge her acting as much, as she did a perfectly fine job as Ariel, but as far as her singing… she should be a household name at some point.
What I also liked was diving more into Caribbean culture, making this film (or at least parts of it) bright, colourful and vivid. I also enjoyed performances by Daveed Diggs and Melissa McCarthy, who were both much-needed comic reliefs, even though Melissa had to dig deeper into her darker side, playing the main villain and all that, and I thought she did fine.
Now, where this movie lost me was… well, everything else. By far, the biggest issue was the length and with that pacing. I don’t mind longer films, but every film must justify its length. The Little Mermaid had no justification for being 135 minutes. Especially the middle part, where you have this massive talent, and she can’t speak (I know it’s part of the story, and it had to happen, but still) felt out of place, the pacing was slow, and it almost felt like Rob Marshall made some bizarre deal with Disney, like had he managed to stretch it over two hours, he would get a bonus.
Also, when I praised the vivid Caribbean culture above, the end of this film is… dark. The CGI mostly didn’t work for me, and weirdly, The Little Mermaid made me appreciate Avatar: The Way of Water (2022, my review here) much more. You can tell how detailed the underwater scenes in Avatar were and how they seem “smooth” and life-like, unlike this movie, where everything and everyone seemed, for lack of a better word, smudged and slightly distorted.
I briefly need to mention Awkwafina, or, better said, her character Scuttle. I know many people don’t like her, and I am not one of them. But, there is a line where her Scuttle character became just annoying, which is rare nowadays. In most kids’ movies made today, the filmmakers know where the invisible line lies and usually make sure that no side character goes beyond it. But there was definitely too much of Scuttle in this movie. I did like the first couple of scenes, but the more this movie went on, the more forced and less funny those jokes became. Again, this isn’t because Awkwafina voiced this character. I can imagine this character being voiced by anybody else and still being as annoying.
This critique can, in a way, sum up how I feel about this film overall. The Little Mermaid isn’t a flop; it is not a bad movie either. It did a few things very well (especially relying on Halle Bailey), but every other choice the people behind this movie made felt unimaginative at best and lazy at worst. Realistically, the only reason I rate this film slightly above the average is the one and only Halle and her singing, as that was worth it. It’s too bad the entire movie didn’t rise to her quality.
Overall, The Little Mermaid is a perfectly fine movie your kids might love, and you will tolerate it. The beginning gives you hope that this might not be that bad, only for the middle part to bore you to tears and the end to be pretty dark (literally) where you can’t really distinguish much. Unlike many, I have seen the original movie from 1989 a few years ago, so it wasn’t a Disney movie I grew up with, so I don’t have a bias that they would “ruin my childhood” with this remake. However, as far as these life-action Disney remakes go, this one ranks amongst them as “one of them”. For me, most of those were exactly, like The Little Mermaid, pretty average experiences with maybe one or two things that would uplift it. It bears repeating after all the hate she had to endure, Halle Bailey is that someone here. She elevates and carries this monster of a movie on her tiny frame, and it would be purely on her singing; I could see myself cautiously recommending this to anyone.
That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!
Until next time,
Luke