The Little Mermaid (2023)

Rating: 8.3

TL;DR - The Little Mermaid is actually a pretty good little movie! It’s not perfect, but definitely one of Disney’s better live-action adaptations! And oh my god can Halle Bailey ever sing — she was PERFECT as Ariel and proves herself to be a rising star! I loved Melissa McCarthy as Ursula too (one of my favourite Disney villains)! And the musical sequences were especially fantastic, can we just give all the Disney musicals to Rob Marshall?! He hasn’t missed yet!

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Film Info:

Premise: A young mermaid makes a deal with a sea witch to trade her beautiful voice for human legs so she can discover the world above water and impress a prince.

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Disney

Directed by Rob Marshall

Screenplay by David Magee

Based on the 1989 Disney Animated Film

Cast: Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King, Melissa McCarthy, Javier Bardem, Daveed Digs, Jacob Tremblay, Awkwafina, Noma Dumezweni, Art Malik, Jessica Alexander

Runtime: 2hr 15min

Rating: PG

Adventure, Fantasy, Musical, Romance

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IMDb Rating: 7.0/10

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 68%

RT Audience Score: 95%

RT Critic Average: 6.4/10

RT Audience Average: 4.7/5

Metacritic Score: 59

CinemaScore: A

Letterboxd: 3.6/5

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Fun Fact: Jodi Benson: the original voice of Ariel in The Little Mermaid (1989), appears as the person who gives Ariel a "dinglehopper" (fork).

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Review:

written by Tyler Park

I finally felt the magic of Disney again!

Despite a mediocre marketing campaign, Rob Marshall’s live-action adaptation of the classic Disney animated film The Little Mermaid turned out to be quite the delightful little film! I really quite enjoyed it, and found it to be one of the better Disney live-action adaptations! Truthfully, while it is still flawed, I didn’t expect it to be near as good as it ended up being — and it actually added enough that it not only deemed itself to be a worthy re-telling but also (dare I say it) ended up being better than the original animated feature! The 1989 film has never been my favourite Disney movie, it’s no Aladdin or Lion King, but in live-action form, I found it far superior to both those films’ live-action counterparts. The reason: not the script, not the visuals, not even the acting — it is all thanks to director Rob Marshall.

For me, Rob Marshall is the new king of Disney musicals — he should just direct them all at this point. Starting his career as a performer and choreographer on Broadway, he soon turned to directing and came out with one of the greatest musical films ever made, Chicago, earning Marshall a Best Director nomination and a Best Picture win at the Oscars that year. Eventually, Marshall came to Disney, directing the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie (which isn’t my favourite, but it was well-directed), Into the Woods, and the fantastic Mary Poppins Returns! So naturally I was excited to see that he was attached to direct this film, and my god did he ever deliver! If nothing else, this is the best-directed Disney live-action adaptation ever. Marshall truly knows how to craft beautiful, breathtaking scenes with gorgeous imagery — especially when it comes to musical sequences. Even though he directs films now, he still choreographs every single musical sequence in his films, and it really shows! The camera movements, lighting, editing, performances, and everything else going on on-screen work in perfect unison with the music to create a truly show-stopping moment! He truly knows how to shoot a classic musical moment with sweeping magic and majesty that you can’t deny! It’s just brilliant — especially after Guy Ritchie butchered all the musical sequences in 2019’s Aladdin. Plus, the choreography for all the underwater musical sequences was so imaginative! “Under The Sea” really felt like classic Disney films such as Fantasia where they used actual dancers as the basis for all the CGI creatures. There’s a video circulating online right now of a bunch of people in blue screen suits crawling on the floor doing the turtle choreography from that sequence — and it just shows how much thought Marshall put into these sequences. Yes, a CGI artist wouldn’t really use any of what was in that frame — but the detailed reference image allows for this richer, more magical choreography to take place. I just really think Rob Marshall did a fantastic job.

The music itself was fantastic too! The classic songs really worked thanks to some breathtaking performances, but that isn’t really a surprise! The new songs written by Lin-Manuel Miranda were the big question for me, and I thought for the most part they were pretty good and added to the movie in really important ways. I love that Eric finally got a strong, emotional ballad to sing with “Wild Uncharted Waters”, and “For the First Time” was a great way of putting us in Ariel’s head during her first steps on land. The only one that didn’t really land was “The Scuttlebutt” which had Awkwafina and Daveed Diggs singing a Hamilton-rap style song, which was fun but didn’t fit with the tone of the rest. Still, while these songs were all good in their own ways, and as much as I love Lin-Manuel Miranda, none of them compare to the originals by the incomparable Howard Ashman. Ashman is one of the greatest lyricists, frankly, ever. He ushered in a golden age of Disney musicals, writing pretty much all of the iconic Disney songs from the 90’s that we know today. I really loved that this movie was dedicated to him in the credits, as his lyrics are half of the reason it is as impactful as it is. Alan Menkin returned to do the score for this one, and I have to say he really improved the rich orchestral backtrack to all the songs! The entire score was excellent!

The introduction of the wonderful Halle Bailey in her first leading role as a Disney princess is why the movie, and especially the songs, work as well as they do. Seeing her as Ariel made me feel the same way I felt when I saw Rachel Zegler in Spielberg’s West Side Story — she’s an absolute star and they could not have picked a more perfect actress for the role. The second you hear Bailey start to sing the opening notes of “Part of Your World”, you realize she has an incredible voice — the new renditions of these songs are magical to listen to because of how talented she is. There is no question in my mind; that is easily what won her the role! But not only does she have an incredible singing ability, but her acting is wonderful too! Bailey’s performance was charming, sweet, and overall lovely to watch. She embodied the role of Ariel and carried her spirit throughout. Her mannerisms and expressive eyes tell a whole story even if she lost her voice to Ursula. It genuinely made me sad that she would have to spend half the movie with no voice because of how good her singing was, but luckily they found a way around that with a new song “For the First Time”, and it gave her the chance to showcase how good an actress she is even without her voice! Truly fit for a Disney princess! Plus her chemistry with Jonah Hauer-King, who played Prince Eric (another perfect casting), made for a romantic relationship to be built instead of it being love at first sight, which is one of the many changes from the original animated feature that really worked. Creating a strong backstory for Prince Eric meant that Ariel would feel that connection just by listening to him rant about wanting to explore and seek adventure overseas. Even without a voice, Ariel expressed how she felt about Eric, and he connected with her because she would listen to him. I loved how the filmmakers really built out the relationship between Ariel and Eric, showing us why they are meant to be together rather than just telling us it was love at first sight. We see their shared interests, how similar they both are, and how they could fit together so well as a couple — really establishing them as literal, bona fide soulmates. It makes the whole film work so much stronger on an emotional level as they put some true romance into the story!

I know I got a little off point there, but I loved both Bailey and Hauer-King’s performances and their chemistry! The story they had to work with was really well elevated over the animated film, and it just made the experience of watching this that much more magical! Another excellent casting: Melissa McCarthy as Ursula. She was downright perfect (frankly, all the casting in this movie was), and her rendition of “Poor Unfortunate Souls” is already iconic in my mind, just as good, if not better than Pat Carrol’s original take on the song. Much like everyone else in the film, she made the role her own! I’m really happy that this movie did offer a lot of new elements besides just nostalgia from the original movie, it made the experience of watching this so much more fulfilling and entertaining!

This film really felt like a sincere remake, not just a corporate mandate. It truly felt like complete Disney magic — and I think that’s why I loved it so much! Sure, it wasn’t perfect — it was a little too long, played it too safe in some areas, and after seeing Avatar: The Way of Water the underwater CGI just couldn’t compare. But damn, I had a swimmingly good time with this movie, I really enjoyed every minute, especially those breathtaking musical sequences! I loved that the additions here actually added to the story and made this film different from your average nostalgia fare. This is the rare remake that surpassed the original, thanks to some excellent work from Rob Marshall, Halle Bailey, Melissa McCarthy, and Jonah Hauer-King! If you love Disney, you need to get out and see The Little Mermaid! It’s beautiful!

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Trailer: