When I first heard that The Little Mermaid was race-swapping Ariel, my favourite princess, I can tell you that I was annoyed, irritated, and honestly, a little hurt. Before you go on and say that I’m 29 and not the ‘target audience’ for this movie, I’ll have you know that I watch The Little Mermaid once per year, and have absolutely no plans of stopping that anytime soon.
This felt like something that Disney was doing just for the ‘woke agenda’ and I worried that this movie was just going to be a quick cash grab. I don’t like live-action Disney remakes in general, but this one was hitting home for me. I thought that this movie was going to be something that erased a part of my childhood to remake and retell it for the modern era—and for my credit, that’s what the media kept telling me was going to happen. The actual movie isn’t that at all. The music, the acting, and the story is mostly faithful to the original to a point where if I closed my eyes, I often felt I was watching the original, the song right before Ariel saves Eric sounds exact to me. Grimsby even sounds so much like the original in my opinion. Part Of Your World could practically be Jodie Benson, which is something I never thought I’d say… this movie is insanely good.
I was so critical of reviews of the movie saying that Halle Bailey makes this movie—they must be saying this just to get brownie points. Nope. Halle is fantastic, and honestly, my opinion of this movie is completely changed by actually watching it (which should always be a threshold anyways, but the trailers did absolutely no justice). I’m also, unlike many others, not somebody who hates Awkwafina. I found her very charming when watching her in Crazy Rich Asians, and I’m quite honestly still intrigued by her. Something about her voice amuses me.
I did find Sebastian’s voice jarring, but I honestly found Flounder to be similar to the original. I think making him smaller makes sense when we consider he’s supposed to be a guppie, especially as we see him get bigger in Return to The Sea.
The worst part of this movie was King Triton. The acting there was hollow and uncomfortable. The original Triton at least felt like a warm father who cared about Ariel… this one… I don’t know, I didn’t like the performance whatsoever. He was decidedly ‘meh’ throughout the entire movie. I do think his best scene was the “What have I done.” part when he realizes Ariel is gone. However, I did like him toward the end.
I also think this was Melissa’s best work in some time. She’s gotten so gimmicky and I’ve been bored of her for some time (used to be a fan). So, I actually appreciated her in this role. She looks really good as Ursula. I’ve always been on team Triton and Ursula should have been related, so changing it to this really is something that I am 100% cool with being canon. Now, Melissa’s singing isn’t perfect, but I don’t mind it and it’s totally serviceable. She’s not as good as Halle is (compared to the original), but she’s not bad at all! If I’m being honest, Melissa’s singing isn’t good enough for me to even care about the song changes. The best singing in the entire song was Ariel’s “aaaah aaaaah aaaah” part, which sounded perfect. I’m VERY impressed.
Sebastian did start to grow on me with the performance of Under the Sea it was much better than I expected, and honestly, quite enjoyable.
I also want to say that… dear costume designers, wow. I really want that tail. It is the most beautiful tail that I’ve ever seen. I want it. The movie is also much prettier and more colorful than ANY OF THE TRAILERS and media released beforehand showed. To be honest, I think Disney’s marketing team needs to be fired for this one. The movie is much more fun and enjoyable than ever could have been seen for the pre-release. Also, I think Disney made their own mistake by feeding into a lot of controversy with comments like “reimagining” Ariel for a modern world, because other than a few little word changes, they really didn’t. Which is a good thing. I think this movie would have done better—and got a better audience if they had just shut their mouths (actors included) and just shared a MUCH PRETTIER trailer, hell, clips from Under the Sea would have been good, like the jellyfish part which are so pretty. Instead, we got the ugliest media beforehand… and a bunch of snide remarks that people are only criticizing the movie due to controversy. The movie is actually so gorgeous… so either they edited more since the trailers, or whoever edited the trailers truly sucked and should be fired.
I honestly think a lot of people (like me included) would have never thought this was a race-bait if we’d gotten a good trailer. The movie that was released is NOTHING like what we were being told we’re getting. It’s much better.
Now, there’s storytelling parts that I’m not as understanding of, like the fact Eric is apparently adopted? I’m not sure what that even adds to the story whatsoever—other than the movie apparently not wanting Eric to be a ‘real’ prince? I don’t know. I guess they’re trying to make it as a reason for them to be in a Jamaica-like environment. Which, Iconcede this makes more sense than floating up from the waters in Europe which are very cold. However, his adoptive mother’s acting was wonderful and did add an actual conflict and reason for Eric to be grounded by more than just Grimbsy, who had no control of Eric in any version. It is a bit curious to have both eric and Ariel having a similar struggle. His voice is great, too. Wild Uncharted Waters actually gave me chills. I kind of like that Eric wants nothing more than to be on the sea, and Ariel wants nothing more than to be on land. This addition was quite poetic and well-executed, so bravo to the writers and directors for that. Eric also having a treasure trove was actually chef’s kiss.
I also must say, Ariel being caught in a fishing net is HILARIOUS to me. Actually everything with her on land for the first time was amazing. Eating soap is actually hilarious and Halle’s acting is doing great. Ariel’s horror at not actually being able to speak is actually shown so much better than in the animated version, and I’m a bit shocked at how much I thoroughly loved her acting and voice. Eating a tropical flower left me in stitches.
Basically, the run-down of this movie is that Halle and Jonah Hauer-King are charming, and have amazing chemistry. I hate to say it, but their chemistry far beats the original story where Eric and Ariel seem to just… like each other for the hell of it. Their shared interests shine in this movie, and I’m actually impressed. At this point I think a lot of people still angry about this film are angry at the way it has been marketed (which has been atrocious, period), and are not the target audience. However, as the target audience (an Ariel lover), my mind was completely changed by watching it. To the point I KNOW I’ll watch it again.