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‘The Little Mermaid’ Review: The Renovations Are Only Skin Deep

Disney’s live-action remake, with Halle Bailey starring as Ariel and a diverse cast, is a dutiful corrective with noble intentions and little fun.

‘The Little Mermaid’ | Anatomy of a Scene

Rob marshall narrates the “under the sea” sequence from his film, featuring halle bailey and daveed diggs..

Hi, I’m Rob Marshall, and I’m the director of ‘The Little Mermaid.’ So this is about two minutes into the musical number ‘Under the Sea,’ which was the most challenging musical number I’ve ever created because you have one live actor — I mean, there she is Ariel, played by Halle Bailey. And introducing dance into a sequence is so complicated because it has to feel seamless. It has to feel organic. It can’t feel applied. So right about here, as the turtles start to move, then you see, O.K., there’s a little bit of dance starting to happen. The tricky part about this was because I only had one live actor, I needed some dancers or something to work from. And I took a page out of Walt Disney’s playbook, and I worked with the Alvin Ailey Company. He had worked with the Ballet Russe Company when he created ‘Fantasia.’ And I thought that was such a brilliant idea. So I worked with the Alvin Ailey Company, brought them to London so we could create all these sea creature moves on something so our artists, our CGI artists, could actually use them as a template, which was incredible. And then we found all these sea creatures that actually lent themselves to dance naturally. These are all real sea creatures. So right there you have mimic octopus and flatworms. Here we’re moving into a bioluminescent world. We had the Alvin Ailey Company using umbrellas and, literally, ribbons, streamers hanging from them so that they could literally create this idea of jellyfish. But all of this, every moment of this was choreographed. And it was so complicated because everything was done on counts. It wasn’t sort of just like, well, let’s just let them do whatever they want. Every moment of it was strategically choreographed by myself, John DeLuca, and our choreographers. [‘UNDER THE SEA’]: — music to me. Music is to me — There’s one moment actually coming up here right here — [‘UNDER THE SEA’]: — hot crustacean band — — that, literally, the CGI artist said it’s the most creatures they’ve ever had ever onscreen. But it was really about protecting and celebrating this beautiful number. Here’s a nautilus shell that we tried to create a la Busby Berkeley. But I really just wanted to make sure that we were doing justice to this incredible number but also bringing a photoreal, exciting world to life.

By Wesley Morris

The new, live-action “The Little Mermaid” is everything nobody should want in a movie: dutiful and defensive, yet desperate for approval. It reeks of obligation and noble intentions. Joy, fun, mystery, risk, flavor, kink — they’re missing. The movie is saying, “We tried!” Tried not to offend, appall, challenge, imagine . A crab croons, a gull raps, a sea witch swells to Stay Puft proportions: This is not supposed to be a serious event. But it feels made in anticipation of being taken too seriously. Now, you can’t even laugh at it.

The story comes from Hans Christian Andersen, and when Disney made a cartoon musical of it in 1989, the tale’s tragedy and existential wonder got swapped for Disney Princess Syndrome, wherein one subjugation is replaced with another, an even exchange redrawn as liberating love. But the people who drew it had a ball with the hooey.

In both movies, the mermaid Ariel wants out of her widowed father’s underwater kingdom and into the arms of the earthbound merchant prince whom she rescues in a shipwreck. Her father forbids, but that sea-witch, Ursula, fulfills Ariel’s wish, giving her three days to procure a kiss from that prince and remain human or spend the rest of her life enslaved to Ursula. Somehow mirth and music ensue. In the original, that’s thanks mostly to Ariel’s talking Caribbean crab guardian, Sebastian, and her Noo Yawky dingbat sea gull pal, Scuttle.

This remake injects some contemporary misfortune (humans despoil the water, we’re told). It also packs on another 52 minutes and three new songs, trades zany for demure and swaps vast animated land- and seascapes for soundstagey sets and screensavery imagery. They’re calling it “live-action,” but the action is mostly CGI. There’s no organic buoyancy. On land, Ariel can walk but can’t speak, which means whoever’s playing her needs a face that can. Achieving that was a piece of cake in the cartoon. Ariel could seem bemused, enchanted, bereft, coquettish, alarmed, aghast, elated. And her scarlet mane was practically a movie unto itself.

Now Ariel is in the singer Halle Bailey’s hands. And it’s not that she can’t keep par with the original’s illustrators. It’s that this movie isn’t asking her to. It takes the better part of an hour for the flesh-and-blood Ariel to go mute. And when she does, whatever carbonation Bailey had to begin with goes flat. This Ariel has amnesia about needing that kiss, taking “cunning” off the table for Bailey, too.

With her sister, Bailey is half of the R&B duo Chloe x Halle. They’ve got a chilling, playful approach to melody that Bailey can’t fully unleash in this movie. For one thing, she’s got two songs, one of which — the standard “Part of Your World” — does manage to let her quaver some toward the end. But what’s required of her doesn’t differ radically from what Jodi Benson did in the first movie. Ostensibly, though, Bailey has been cast because her Ariel would differ. Bailey’s is Black, with long copper hair that twists, waves and locks. Racially, the whole movie’s been, what, opened up? Diversified? Now, Ariel’s rueful daddy, King Triton, is played by a stolid Javier Bardem, who does all the king’s lamenting in Spanish-inflected English. Instead of the Broadway chorines of the original, her mermaid siblings are a multiethnic, runway-ready General Assembly.

The prince, Eric (Jonah Hauer-King), is white, English and now seems to have more plot than Ariel. “More” includes meals with his mother, Queen Selina ( Noma Dumezweni ), who’s Black, as is her chief servant, Lashana (Martina Laird). The script, credited to David Magee, John DeLuca, and the director Rob Marshall, informs us that the queen has adopted the prince (because somebody knew inquiring minds would need to know). As the bosomy, tentacled Ursula, who’s now Triton’s banished, embittered sister, Melissa McCarthy puts a little pathos in the part’s malignancy. She seems like she’s having a fine time, a little Bette Midler, a little Mae West, a little Etta James. And the sight of her racing toward the camera in a slithery gush of arms and fury is the movie’s one good nightmare image. But even McCarthy seems stuck in a shot-for-shot, growl-for-growl tribute to her cartoon counterpart and Pat Carroll’s vocal immortalization of it.

The animated version was about a girl who wanted to leave showbiz. She and her sisters performed follies basically for King Triton’s entertainment. The songs by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken aimed for the American Songbook’s Disney wing. The voices and evocations were Vegas and vaudeville. Dry land was, entertainment-wise, a lot dryer, but that was all right with Ariel. This new flesh-and-blood version is about a girl who’d like to withdraw her color from the family rainbow and sail off into “uncharted waters” with her white prince.

What’s really been opened up, here? For years now, Disney’s been atoning for the racism and chauvinism and de facto whiteness of its expanded catalog (it owns Pixar and Marvel, too), in part by turning its nettlesome cartoons into live-action corrections. This is important, culturally reparative work from a corporation that, lately, has more steadily inched humanity away from bottom-line priorities; consequently, it has found itself at war with the governor of Florida, where Disney World lives. Onscreen, though, that correctness tends to smell like compromise. For every “Moana,” “Coco” or “Encanto” — original, wondrous, exuberant animated musicals about relationships and cultures Disney didn’t previously notice or treat with care — there’s something timid and reactive like this.

The brown skin and placeable accents don’t make the movie more fun, just utopic and therefore less arguable. Now, what you’ve got is something closer to the colorblind wish fulfillment of the Shonda Rhimes streaming universe, minus the wink-wink, side-eye and carnality. This “Little Mermaid” is a byproduct. The colorization hasn’t led to a racialized, radicalized adventure. It’s not a Black adaptation, an interpretation that imbues white material with Black culture until it’s something completely new; it’s not “The Wiz.” It’s still a Disney movie, one whose heroine now, sigh, happens to be Black. There is some audacity in that. Purists and trolls have complained. They don’t want the original tampered with, even superficially. They don’t want it “woke.” The blowback is, in part, Bailey’s to shoulder. And her simply being here confers upon her a kind of heroism, because it does still feels dangerous to have cast her. Sadly, the haters don’t have much to worry about.

You don’t hire Rob Marshall for radical rebooting. He can do visual chaos and costume kitsch (“Chicago,” “Memoirs of a Geisha,” “Into the Woods”). He can do solid. And he can usually give you a good set piece while he’s at it. This time, it’s the rowboat scene in which Ariel shows Eric how to say her name, a scene that produces “Kiss the Girl,” the calypso number that Sebastian (voiced with an island accent by Daveed Diggs) sings to cajole Eric into planting one on Ariel and unwittingly restoring her voice. (The lyrics have been tweaked to add more consent.) It’s the swooniest things get.

Otherwise, the movie’s worried — worried about what we’ll say, about whether they got it right. That allergy to creative risk produces hazards anyway. I mean, with all these Black women running around in a period that seems like the 19th century, the talk of ships and empire, Brazil and Cartagena just makes me wonder about the cargo on these boats. And this plot gets tricky with a Black Ariel. When Ursula pulls a fast one and reinvents herself as Vanessa, a sexy rival who appears to be white and woos Eric with a siren song in Ariel’s voice, there’s a whole American history of theft and music to overthink, too.

It’s really a misery to notice these things. A 9-year-old wouldn’t. But one reason we have this remake is that former 9-year-olds, raised on and besotted with these original Disney movies, grew up and had questions. In that sense, “The Little Mermaid” is more a moral redress than a work of true inspiration. Which isn’t to say there’s nothing inspired about it. In fact, the best sequence in the movie combines these ambitions of so-called inclusion with thornier American musical traditions. It’s the moment when Scuttle reveals that Eric’s about to marry Ursula.

The song that breaks this news to Ariel and Sebastian is a rap called “The Scuttlebutt” with lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda. And Awkwafina, who does Scuttle’s voice, performs most of it while Bailey looks on in what I’m going to call anguish. Here’s an Asian American performer whose shtick is a kind of Black impersonation, pretending to be a computer-generated bird, rhythm-rapping with a Black American man pretending to be a Caribbean crab. It’s the sort of mind-melting mess that feels honest and utterly free in its messiness, even as the mess douses a conveniently speechless Black woman.

Watching it, you realize why the rest of the movie plays it so safe. Because fun is some risky business. This is a witty, complex, exuberant, breathless, deeply American number that’s also the movie’s one moment of unbridled, unabashed delight. And I can’t wait to see how Disney’s going to apologize for it in 34 years.

The Little Mermaid Rated PG. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes. In theaters.

Wesley Morris is a critic at large and the co-host, with Jenna Wortham, of the culture podcast “Still Processing.” He has won two Pulitzer Prizes for criticism, including in 2021 for a set of essays that explored the intersection of race and pop culture. More about Wesley Morris

‘The Little Mermaid’: An Ariel for a new generation

Halle bailey makes this live-action version of the disney classic her own, with confidence, charisma and oceans of charm.

Admirers of the beloved 1989 animated classic “The Little Mermaid” are justified to approach the new live-action adaptation with trepidation. As Disney has systematically raided its archive for intellectual property to repurpose (and, more to the point, remonetize), the results have been wildly uneven: For every better-than-expected “ Jungle Book ” and “ Cinderella ,” audiences have been subjected to far more misfires on the order of “ Aladdin .”

This outing, which stars the incandescent Halle Bailey in the title role, would never qualify as a disaster, although at a padded-out two-hours-plus, it occasionally feels like an unnecessarily heavy lift. Director Rob Marshall knows his way around a spectacle, but it bears recalling that even his “best” film, the 2002 musical “Chicago,” is a choppy, over-edited mess. Here, his judgment is similarly uneven: Enlisting Bailey as the adventurous, headstrong mermaid Ariel was his most controversial decision, but also a stroke of pure inspiration; other casting choices, however, don’t work nearly as well. If you need a few new songs to play well with the work of the great Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, who wouldn’t give Lin-Manuel Miranda the gig? Here, the gambit mostly works, except when it decidedly doesn’t.

Alan Menken talks adaptations of ‘Aladdin’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’

And so it goes with an on-the-other-fin mixed bag of a movie that honors its source material with a big, color-saturated production, while never precisely proving that it ever needed to exist.

Perhaps, though, introducing Bailey to a mass audience is reason enough. After a preamble in which we meet Eric (Jonah Hauer-King), a dimpled sailor who also happens to be a prince, “The Little Mermaid” introduces us to Ariel’s watery home, where she lives with her sisters under the oppressive eye of her father, King Triton, portrayed by a virtually unrecognizable Javier Bardem. As the movie gets underway in earnest, so do the original’s best production numbers: “Under the Sea,” performed by Sebastian the crab (delightfully voiced by Daveed Diggs), as well as the classic what-the-girl-wants song “Part of Your World.” It’s here that “The Little Mermaid” reveals the truth: This isn’t a live-action film as much as a CGI extravaganza featuring sentient human beings manipulated to look weirdly two-dimensional even when they’re not.

In Bardem’s case, the results are forbiddingly cold and inert, and Awkwafina wears out her welcome quickly in a screechy, strident vocal turn as Scuttle the seagull. (Her big number, a rapid-fire rap song co-written by Miranda, is sure to divide audiences.) Although Hauer-King has the film’s most thankless role as the blandly handsome Prince Eric, he sells the character’s new power ballad in his what-the-boy-wants scene. Melissa McCarthy similarly makes the most of her scene-stealing turn as Ursula the evil sea witch, belting out her big number (“Poor Unfortunate Souls”) with gusto, flawless comic timing, and fabulous hair and makeup.

The basics are all accounted for in “The Little Mermaid,” which Marshall sets on a 19th-century Caribbean island ruled by Eric’s mother, Queen Selina (Noma Dumezweni) — who adopted her White son as an orphan. If this newly inclusive adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fable is gracefully addressed by its tropical, cosmopolitan setting, the story’s sexual politics aren’t fixed quite so easily: The plot still revolves around Ariel losing her voice to find the love of her life — while not losing the approval of her pathologically controlling father.

Still, for viewers who can overlook those anachronisms, this “Little Mermaid” yields its own rewards, by way of a sumptuous production design and lively, expertly choreographed set pieces; Ariel’s enchanting undersea forest often rivals “Avatar” for sheer color and beguiling imagery.

Most dazzling, though, is Ariel herself, portrayed by Bailey with such sparkle and such exquisite vocal artistry that it’s difficult to imagine anyone else in the role. Bailey nails the iconic moments (that head toss) and the high notes, but also her character’s combination of spunk and innocence. She delivers a lovely performance that’s all the more accomplished for being delivered amid crashing waves, sweeping vistas and the crushing expectations of generations of fans. As a new generation’s Ariel, she makes “The Little Mermaid” her own — with confidence, charisma and oceans of charm.

PG. At area theaters. Contains action, peril and some scary images. 130 minutes.

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The Little Mermaid Reviews

The film feels at once too stunted for an actual musical and too expansive to be just another movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 6.9/10 | Oct 29, 2023

The music does seem to soar for the most part, and the movie is all elevated by Halle Bailey, she's fantastic.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 27, 2023

[U]nfortunately, you do gotta (slightly) hand it to them — in the disenchanting, decomposing pile of animated adaptations, The Little Mermaid at least lies somewhere in the upper half.

Full Review | Oct 16, 2023

It can go without saying but Halle Bailey as Ariel is the most perfect casting for a live-action remake Disney has ever done. The way she was able to capture Ariel’s child-like inquisitiveness, stubbornness & yearning is something that should be studied.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 13, 2023

The delightful sits alongside the baffling in Marshall’s adaptation, which is so often the way it goes with these Disney live action remakes.

Full Review | Oct 2, 2023

Consider the lousy animation and awkward performances and highly questionable narrative and ask what, to the tune of “Under the Sea,” the hell is this?

Full Review | Original Score: D | Sep 18, 2023

To begin, Halle Bailey. Remember her name and don’t forget it. From the trailers, to the red carpet, under the sea and above it, she is charismatic, humble, and a songstress.

Full Review | Sep 7, 2023

By making a series of small changes and using his experience in adapting musicals ("Chicago"/"Into the Woods"), [director Rob] Marshall crafts a story we know and gives it an entirely different vibe, for better or worse.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 6, 2023

Halle Bailey is by far the best part of Rob Marshall’s 2023 live action movie. She is a luminous talent with an angelic voice. She is without a doubt Ariel with her wide-eyed wonder and teen rebellion.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Sep 6, 2023

Another popcorn summer film, this time inviting a dive into the cool CGI waters of Atlantica peppered with shark attacks, shipwrecks and a giant octopus sea witch. Empty calories definitely, but fun all the same

Full Review | Aug 27, 2023

All the film’s flaws and miscalculations can be forgiven by its most impressive saving grace: Bailey’s performance is as remarkable as it is enchanting.

Full Review | Aug 23, 2023

...looks like a cheapie commercial for Royal Caribbean Cruises.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 19, 2023

[Bailey] is absolutely magnetic on the screen and it’s hard to imagine many others being as perfect for the role as she turns out to be.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Aug 15, 2023

The casting, new songs and overall look aren’t strong enough to promote or weak enough to disparage.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Aug 8, 2023

It’s a weird message to be sending children these days: pretend to be something you’re not, keep your trap shut and hope nobody notices the scales.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 2, 2023

Nothing in recent memory feels so much like amalgamated groupthink capital-C Content like this Little Mermaid.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

The Little Mermaid enriches virtually every narrative aspect compared to the original, deepening Ariel and Eric's arcs while exploring the same core themes without losing any of its predecessor's essence.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jul 25, 2023

The Little Mermaid (2023) is the most successful of the live-action Disney remakes. Even with its shortcomings, the heart of the animated film exists within this new version which cannot be said for many other live action remakes.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

Mostly thanks to the music and dramatic performances from Bailey and McCarthy, "The Little Mermaid" goes along swimmingly. And that puts it several strokes ahead of other live-action Disney remakes.

Although it does not possess the same campy nature as its animated predecessor, The Little Mermaid maintains the emotion of the beloved story through a star-creating performance and emphasis on relationships.

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The Little Mermaid review: Halle Bailey swims (and sings) her way to stardom

The seaweed is actually greener this time.

Maureen Lee Lenker is a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly with over seven years of experience in the entertainment industry. An award-winning journalist, she's written for Turner Classic Movies, Ms. Magazine , The Hollywood Reporter , and more. She's worked at EW for six years covering film, TV, theater, music, and books. The author of EW's quarterly romance review column, "Hot Stuff," Maureen holds Master's degrees from both the University of Southern California and the University of Oxford. Her debut novel, It Happened One Fight , is now available. Follow her for all things related to classic Hollywood, musicals, the romance genre, and Bruce Springsteen.

When it comes to thingamabobs, Disney 's got plenty, but as far as saving graces go, one tale rises to the surface.

In 1989, when The Little Mermaid made its initial box office bow, it reinvigorated Disney animation and launched what has been dubbed the Disney Renaissance. It marked the studio's first animated feature-length hit since 1977's The Rescuers and their first animated fairy tale since 1959's Sleeping Beauty, helping the floundering studio reestablish itself as a leader in the space. What's more, the music and lyrics by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman brought Broadway-style structure to the animated film, evolving the movie musical.

Nowadays, Disney is once again at a crossroads. The streaming bubble is bursting, the theatrical model remains in flux after the pandemic disruption, and an un-slaked thirst for quarterly profit growth is pushing the company to rely ever more heavily on provable IP. Disney has come under fire for a reliance on its own properties, the regurgitation of its animated hits in live-action remakes and lackluster churn of Marvel and Star Wars product. But a red-headed mermaid is here to save the day once more with a new take on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale.

This iteration of The Little Mermaid is the studio's freshest catch since it kicked off this live-action trend with 2015's Cinderella, featuring refreshing storytelling that captures the magic of the original. Director Rob Marshall at last has found material that fits him as well as 2002's Chicago, his splashy theatrical style merging with the tropes of musical comedy and something darker around the edges. He even finds a spot for his "they're happening in someone's head" approach to numbers in new track "For the First Time," giving a voiceless Ariel a musical inner monologue.

As the titular mermaid yearning for a life beyond the sea, Ariel is at the heart of this. In Halle Bailey , Disney and Marshall mint a new star. Bailey is breathtaking as Ariel. Her rendition of "Part of Your World" (the best "I want" song ever written) transmogrifies the already classic tune into something as otherworldly as undiscovered sea life. But it's her altogether human performance that makes it impossible not to fall in love with her. Her Ariel is less a tempestuous teenager with a crush than she is a blossoming and curious young woman.

While Ariel's interest in the human world beyond Prince Eric was always implicit in the story, David Magee's screenplay and Bailey's visible hunger for a world beyond her gilded net makes it abundantly clear that Ariel's fascination with life on land isn't driven purely by interest in a man. Instead, she and Eric (a dashing Jonah Hauer-King ) are drawn to each other because of their mutual curiosity for worlds beyond their own. A new, quietly drawn scene where Eric shows the voiceless Ariel the wonders of his own trove of treasures untold fills in this point of connection between them with subtlety and beauty.

Much has been made of the film's attempts to erase any potentially problematic content, changing a lyric in "Kiss the Girl" to address consent concerns and eliminating the "body language" section of "Poor Unfortunate Souls." While they are unnecessary edits, they're not glaring and pass so quickly that unless you have sung this soundtrack from start to finish in the shower for most of your life, you will scarcely notice them.

What is marvelous is this more diverse world of characters and a new Disney princess in Bailey. Her Ariel is so radiant that she seems to possess the properties of bioluminescence, absolutely glowing in every scene. Like the screen actors of the past who began as silent creatures, conveying the panoply of human emotion with looks and gestures rather than dialogue, Bailey has a similar task for a portion of the film when Ariel gives up her voice. It's engrossing to watch how much story she can tell with only her eyes or the tilt of her head. It's a type of performance and incumbent stardom we rarely see anymore.

Eric is given more depth here, as well, his status as a shipwrecked orphan and interest in the world beyond sturdily grounded in Hauer-King's performance. His new song "Wild Uncharted Waters" — from Menken and lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda — puts Eric's journey in parallel to Ariel's. Hauer-King elevates the character beyond a bland handsome face, while never pulling focus from Bailey's star turn.

Besides, Bailey's true foil isn't Hauer-King, it's Daveed Diggs as the voice of Sebastian, the put-upon crab tasked with watching over her. Diggs rose to fame as the original Lafayette and Jefferson in Broadway's Hamilton , but he's parlayed that breakout into a range of roles. Where Lafayette and Jefferson were egotistical bombasts, Diggs' Sebastian is a neurotic crustacean with a heart far softer than his shell. His vocal performance is both funny and tender, lending the overwhelmed crab more dignity and humanity than his animated predecessor. He delivers his feature number, "Under the Sea," with glee and precision, resulting in a riotous air of celebration.

"Under the Sea" is the film's high-water mark — featuring choreography from more realistic sea life, including schools of fish, sea stars, and jellyfish, executing Broadway-level dance moves. The film credits the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and the number evokes the Black joy and culture of the legendary dance company in a visual expression of the Caribbean timbre of the tune. It's a visual feast for the eyes, a veritable seafood buffet with swirling tableaus rife with vibrant coral and flashy fins. This chromatic kaleidoscope of sea life is a work of art unto itself, an irresistible backdrop for the film's iconic score and dazzling performances.

As sea witch Ursula, Melissa McCarthy is as enrapturing as her tentacles. She reels back some of her signature gross-out schtick and instead goes full drag-queen fabulous in a performance that feels like Drag Race by way of Norma Desmond. Marshall contains McCarthy's chaotic energy, allowing it to burst out in measured moments. Her Ursula is equal parts villainy and glamor, becoming something truly terrifying in her climactic transformation.

Magee's screenplay gives Ursula a more fleshed-out backstory as Triton's sister, but it could go further, as we never fully understand the tension and relationship between the two. That is partly the fault of Javier Bardem, who is the film's weakest link as a rather one-note King of the Sea, relying on his general air of menace. It's a disappointing turn from him, particularly given that Triton's arc should be one of the story's most compelling.

Awkwafina is appropriately grating as Scuttle, but in that, she's too reliant on her acting persona to take the place of character work. The new songs, from Menken and Miranda, largely fade into the background, overshadowed by the original score's classics, but "The Scuttlebutt," a rap number for Scuttle and Sebastian, is a standout. Miranda's signature style is abundantly evident and both Awkwafina and Diggs get to showcase their chops. (Though, it would've been nice for Diggs' extraordinary prowess and speed as a rapper to receive more of a showcase throughout the song.)

On the whole, The Little Mermaid does what past live-action remakes haven't: justify its existence beyond a blatant cash grab. It's not the new songs or even the dazzling visuals breathing new life into this watery world that do it. It's Bailey, her singular performance as Ariel, and the opportunity to give the world a Disney princess for a new generation, with all of the Mouse House whimsy on one side of the scales, and a depth and humanity that feels neither preachy nor performative on the other.

The human world, it's a mess, but with Halle Bailey, life under the sea is better than anything Disney live-action has done in nearly a decade. A-

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Related content:

• How Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides influenced The Little Mermaid
• Hear Halle Bailey sing 'Part of Your World' from The Little Mermaid
• The Little Mermaid 's Halle Bailey explains why Ariel's iconic hair flip was hard to pull off

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‘the little mermaid’ review: halle bailey charms, but rob marshall’s live-action remake nearly drowns in déjà vu.

The 'Chicago' director's take on the beloved Disney film also stars Melissa McCarthy, Javier Bardem, Daveed Diggs, Jonah Hauer King and Awkwafina.

By Lovia Gyarkye

Lovia Gyarkye

Arts & Culture Critic

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We’ve been here before, haven’t we? A Disney live-action remake igniting a round of existential debate? This time it’s Rob Marshall ‘s interpretation of The Little Mermaid , based on John Musker and Ron Clement’s 1989 version and starring Halle Bailey as the titular sea creature. It features new music by Lin-Manuel Miranda and wrings as much as possible from the corporation’s CGI budget.

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Marshall’s Ariel (Bailey) is Black — a choice that sent scores of people clutching their pearls and reverting to racist protestations. Their complaints of a nonexistent white erasure are littered across the internet under the hashtag #NotMyAriel. (It seems to not have occurred to the objectors that a fictional character does not belong to anyone.) The detractors had no standing, but their outrage fueled the anxious anticipation and expectations around the film.  

Thankfully, Bailey doesn’t disappoint as Ariel. Her performance adds edge to what is ultimately a serviceable film. Whether she’s belting out a newly arranged “Part of Your World” or silently observing her less than charming prince (Jonah Hauer King) navigate his own social constrictions, her charisma radiates off the screen. The Beyoncé prodigy and the other half of the Grammy-winning duo Chloe x Halle gracefully presents her own Ariel: The character is still sweet and sharp-tongued, but there’s a touch more bite to her defiance. Her voice, the narrative’s raison d’être, sounds ethereal, too. Reconciling the strength of Bailey’s portrayal with the rest of the film, however, takes some work. 

The film opens in a photorealist interpretation of the sea somewhere off the coast of a fictitious Caribbean island. Flounder (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) resembles a real fish, his skin slimy and slightly puckered. The scales on Ariel’s tail shimmer as she meanders through a shipwrecked area looking for treasures instead of meeting with her father ( Javier Bardem ) and her sisters. The coral reefs look like they could be in a National Geographic spread. It’s jarring, at first, to see Ariel’s world come to a different kind of life, but you eventually settle into the hyperrealist rhythms of her home. 

For the most part, Marshall’s version echoes Musker and Clements’ take on Hans Christian Andersen’s tragic story. (I hope for a version one day of The Little Mermaid that takes on the author’s distressing original tale and renders the sea’s menacing reality.) When Ariel and Flounder narrowly escape a ravenous shark, it’s easy to remember the same scene and marvel at the sharpness of this three-dimensional predator. The changes to the mermaid world come in the form of Triton’s daughters, each of whom are of a different race and, we are told early in the film, are representatives of the seven seas. There’s not much, unfortunately, done with or explained about this cosmopolitan cadre of mermaids.

When Ariel makes her away above ground, it’s hard to build a case for why she needed to leave. The 1989 version of The Little Mermaid didn’t have the sturdiest narrative, but it offered some droll moments. Remember Chef Louis trying to cook Sebastian? That subplot helped take some of the pressure off Ariel and Eric’s story. The lovers get a lot more time in the new film, which I’m not convinced is a good thing. Prince Eric’s island pales in comparison to Ariel’s world — and the charm differential between the two performers makes it challenging to be as enthralled with the rest of the film. 

As Ariel moves through the castle, chased by Scuttle (voiced by Awkwafina) and Sebastian, who are trying to help her land a kiss, the viewer may long to be back under the sea. The live animation techniques are weakest on land, as when Ariel and Eric spend the evening on the lagoon. The inert quality of these scenes makes Ursula’s subsequent appearance to wreak havoc feel more welcome than it probably should. At last, I thought, a reminder of the more vibrant world our little mermaid left behind.

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The Little Mermaid Review

No big deal, i want more..

The Little Mermaid opens in theaters on May 26, 2023

The Little Mermaid, like Disney’s other live-action adaptations of its animated classics, is an engine running on nostalgia. While it is full of heart, that spirit is owed in a major way to the iconic music and ever-relatable story of the original. Nothing that was added in to pad out its runtime to a whopping two hours feels entirely necessary. It’s not that this version of The Little Mermaid is bad – it’s arguably one of the better live action Disney remakes – it's that, beyond Halle Bailey’s incredible performance as Princess Ariel, there’s little here that makes as much of an impact as the same moments in the animated version.

What’s unquestionable is that Bailey is a powerhouse. She shines as the pearl of The Little Mermaid’s center, inspiring sympathy even as she’s silent for the latter half. The Little Mermaid has always been a story about loneliness, girlhood, and the need to prove oneself, and Bailey balances these themes brilliantly. In moments of levity she bounces with optimism and curiosity, but beautifully grounds her performance in Ariel’s quieter moments of doubt. That a generation of children may feel represented by her is an added bonus.

Most vitally, Bailey imbues her show-stopping rendition of “Part of Your World” with a wild and raw yearning that’s sure to send chills down the spine of anyone who’s ever desperately wanted more . It’s unforgettable. To watch her belt out this ballad of longing for a life beyond that which you feel trapped by is inspiring, and I only wish I could experience it for the first time over and over again. What’s frustrating is that few other musical moments even come close to this high point.

The second stand-out performance comes from the bitingly funny Melissa McCarthy as Ursula the sea witch. She shines with sinister glory, cleverly bringing to life one of Disney’s most iconic villains without trying too hard to imitate Pat Carroll’s brilliant version exactly. Her take on “Poor Unfortunate Souls” is insanely fun, but the whole sequence is hard to appreciate due to the baffling choice in the dark lighting of her lair.

What's your favorite song from The Little Mermaid?

On that note, considering that nearly half of the two hours is spent underwater, the most disappointing aspect of The Little Mermaid is how lackluster it looks when we’re under the sea. Dim even at the best of times, the depths of the ocean exude an emotional frigidness of sorts, underscored by questionable visual effects. We see few other merpeople beyond Triton (who’s gruff sternness is played capably by Javier Bardem) or his daughters, and there’s something awkward about the way their faces look on their animated bodies. Likewise, the decision to render the sea creatures realistically (rather than take a more fantastical anthropomorphized approach) robs the kingdom of Atlantica of most of its life.

The thing is, there’s no real reason Ariel’s animal friends need to look like they swam off the pages of National Geographic. Jacob Tremblay, Awkwafina, and Daveed Diggs sound as though they’re having lots of fun in their roles as Flounder, Scuttle, and Sebastian respectively, but there’s only so much they can do against dubious character design. Maybe it’s meant to ground this story in reality… but was there really a need to ground a Disney classic? Especially one with talking fish? A lifelike crab simply can’t emote in the same way the original cartoonish Sebastian can. By pursuing a realistic style, Ariel’s companions are robbed of most of their humanity and feel more like props rather than fully realized personalities. It’s not a new issue. Disney’s live action Lion King features some stellar vocal performances but Simba and crew suffer from the same stiffness that comes from mapping human emotion on an animal’s face.

The Little Mermaid Character Posters

The surface is a slightly different story, and here we see the remake expand on Eric’s island (and his love of exploring) in some clever ways. Where the original primarily contains itself within the walls of the castle, this one tries to breathe some life into the island. Through set and costume design, The Little Mermaid works to locate this island in a more Caribbean setting. It’s lively in a way that Atlantica isn’t, full of new sights and sounds and friendly faces. This valiant effort gives some reasoning to Ariel’s decision to leave the sea behind that doesn’t hinge entirely on her brief interactions with Eric (played by Jonah Hauer-King). Like most of the new additions, though, these changes are admirable enough but hardly memorable.

And speaking of additions: let’s talk about those new songs. This is the arena where the live-action adaptation could have set itself apart from the animated original but, unfortunately, it disappoints. Eric delivers a theatrical solo that Hauer-King adeptly tackles vocally, but the timing and lyricism of the song itself renders the moment a bit silly. Another song, “Scuttlebutt,” is a fun quasi-rap performed by Diggs and Awkwafina (and very strongly rings of Lin Manuel-Miranda’s involvement), but its awkward placement – moments before Ariel’s devastating discovery of Ursula’s treachery – is questionable. Really, the only new song that’s woven in seamlessly is “For the First Time,” a bubbly number performed via Ariel’s internal monologue as she experiences the surface for – you guessed it – the first time.

What still works is that this story serves as a reminder of what’s so resonant about Ariel: more than just a romance, it’s about how there’s a danger and desperation in feeling misunderstood and underestimated – and a profound relief when you find a place to belong. What Bailey’s Ariel demonstrates is that The Little Mermaid has always been a story that barely avoids becoming a tragedy (as it famously does in the original fairy tale).

Halle Bailey’s brilliantly vulnerable performance as Ariel is the star of the show in Disney’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid. Melissa McCarthy follows closely behind with a magnetic performance as Ursula. As a whole, however, this version sometimes struggles to keep itself above water. Its problems lie in lackluster underwater sequences, realistic sea creatures missing cartoonish charm, and additions to the story that are quaint but not necessarily memorable. What works best are the elements it takes from the original, highlighted best by a show-stopping rendition of Part of Your World. While this version doesn’t always find its sea legs, there’s enough of those original ideas recreated here that it can’t go too far wrong.

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Summary The Little Mermaid is the beloved story of Ariel (Halle Bailey), a beautiful and spirited young mermaid with a thirst for adventure. The youngest of King Triton’s (Javier Bardem) daughters, and the most defiant, Ariel longs to find out more about the world beyond the sea, and while visiting the surface, falls for the dashing Prince Eric ... Read More

Directed By : Rob Marshall

Written By : David Magee, Hans Christian Andersen, John Musker, Ron Clements

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Halle bailey, jonah hauer-king.

Melissa McCarthy

Javier Bardem

King triton.

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Sir Grimsby

Daveed Diggs

Jacob Tremblay

Jessica Alexander

Martina laird, emily coates.

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The Little Mermaid First Reviews: Star Halle Bailey Animates This Live-Action Remake

Turns out ariel is in great hands with the film's star, but some critics call this remake of the animated classic "murky.".

TAGGED AS: Disney , Film , movies , Walt Disney Pictures

Walt Disney caught some flak over its decision to pursue a live-action remake of 1989 animated classic The Little Mermaid (Certified Fresh at 92%), and sentiment from some corners of the internet turned positively ugly when the company revealed that the film’s scaled star Ariel would be played by black actress Halle Bailey .

With the embargo lifting, we finally get to see how critics are responding to the final product, and it turns out Bailey is the best thing about the film.

The Little Mermaid also stars Melissa McCarthy as villain Ursula, Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric, Javier Bardem as King Triton, Daveed Digg s voicing Sebastian, Jacob Tremblay voicing Flounder, and Awkwafina voicing Scuttle.

Here’s what critics are saying about 2023’s The Little Mermaid :

How is Halle Bailey’s performance?

“Halle Bailey is all the reason that any audience should need to justify Disney revisiting this classic.” – Peter Debruge, Variety

“While not everything goes swimmingly, Halle Bailey splendidly buoys this ‘Mermaid’ as the naive underwater youngster with dreams of exploring the surface.” – Brian Truitt, USA Today

“Bailey gives a glowing performance of effortless starshine; her singing voice has both sweetness and power, and her smile is the sort on which dreams dance.” – Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times

“There’s such a luminous quality to her desires, and an intensity to her desperation, that she digs down deeper into Ariel than anyone ever has before. And that voice! Her version of original Ariel voice actor Jodi Benson’s classic ‘Part of Your World’ features a spectacular key change – it’ll soon be butchered at every karaoke joint in the land.” – Clarisse Loughrey, Independent (UK)

“Bailey is both the finished film’s only unmitigated triumph and the best argument for this whole live action remake enterprise in one shimmering mermaidcore package.” – Ellen E Jones, Guardian

“In the end I loved Bailey so much as Ariel and her singing voice is so beautiful it allowed me to forgive much of the movies flaws. She really is that good.” – Rachel Wagner, rachelsreviews.net

“As Ariel, Halle Bailey shines brighter than the sun. She’ll silence the haters easily.” – Sarah Musnicky, VitalThrills.com

How are the other performances?

“A mixed bag overall, but still a must-see for Halle Bailey’s breathtaking work as Ariel and Melissa McCarthy’s deliciously devilish Ursula.” – Perri Nemiroff, Perri Nemiroff (YouTube)

It’s saved by Bailey’s charming performance, McCarthy’s sass and the story’s own eternal magic.” – Helen O’Hara, Empire Magazine

“Disney’s latest live-action ‘reimagining’ of one of its animated musical classics, The Little Mermaid , succeeds largely because of three folks: leads Halle Bailey and Jonah Hauer-King and director Rob Marshall.” – Mark Meszoros, The News-Herald (Willoughby, OH)

“[Director Rob] Marshall and his terrific ensemble manage to navigate the spotty squalls and bring this one home.” – Hope Madden, MaddWolf

“Halle Bailey is tremendous as Ariel, providing powerful, emotion-stirring vocals & a wonderful sense of curiosity. New musical numbers, a slightly updated setting, and Daveed Diggs as Sebastian are other highlights in one of Disney’s best remakes yet.” – Aaron White, Feelin’ Film Podcast

“Bailey has a beautiful singing voice, one which transports familiar Menken songs…into new heights…one of McCarthy’s all time best performances, the actress commanding her scenes, singing in a husky voice and vamping like a Broadway diva.” – Laura Clifford, Reeling Reviews

How does it compare to the animated classic?

“Another ‘live-action’ remake that’s darker and less compelling than the animated original.” – Helen O’Hara, Empire Magazine

“My nostalgia for the 1989 Little Mermaid , a movie I can quote by heart, has probably never been stronger than it is now. Neither has my wearied sense of déjà vu.” – Aisha Harris, NPR

“For now, ‘The Little Mermaid’ exists outside of the very world it so wants to be a part of, one already so lovingly rendered in its predecessor, “real” or not.” – Kate Erbland, indieWire

“Thanks largely to star Halle Bailey, the lavish musical holds up nicely under the weight of those expectations, preserving the original’s essence while updating undernourished aspects of it and riding a warm, hard-to-resist wave of nostalgia.” – Brian Lowry, CNN.com

How does it compare to other live-action remakes?

“ The Little Mermaid , despite a few misfires, is one of Disney’s best live-action reimaginings to date.” – Emily Zemler, Observer

“If the new version isn’t quite as consistently satisfying as the cartoon, it’s easily the best of all the recent live-action Disney adaptations. The Little Mermaid is popping candy for the soul.” – Charlotte O’Sullivan, London Evening Standard

“As the studio has done with other live-action remakes, Disney betrays its own lack of imagination and an essential misreading of what made its original children’s fare such a joy to audiences in the first place.” – Angelica Jade Bastién, New York Magazine/Vulture

“With Halle Bailey, life under the sea is better than anything Disney live-action has done in nearly a decade.” – Maureen Lee Lenker, Entertainment Weekly

“ The Little Mermaid is arguably the best live-action Disney remake since Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella. The splendor is there; the romance is crafted with care — but something’s still missing.” – Lyvie Scott, Inverse

Related: Disney Live-Action Remakes Ranked

How dare a movie studio make money!

“Despite real actors, CGI and brand new material, ‘Mermaid’ is the studio’s latest flesh-and-blood cash grab that’s more lifeless than far better two-dimensional painted drawings.” – Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post

“A thoroughly pointless cash grab of a thing, this new Little Mermaid is one of the most uninspired films to slither out of Disney since the company started raiding its own vault.” – Barry Hertz, Globe and Mail

How is the new material?

“While it’s still an exercise in re-branding and revenue, the results at least provide some dazzle, some romance, and a handful of pretty-good new songs with lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda.” – Alonso Duralde, The Film Verdict

“What’s on-screen too often feels like wan, second-rate imitation, and the few differences seem motivated less by a spirit of imagination than one of joyless anxiety.” – Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

“For all its pizazz, everything about this Little Mermaid is just more muted. Miranda’s new songs are odd, too, and don’t seem to fit.” – Lindsey Bahr, Associated Press

“‘The Little Mermaid’ origin story lacks room for this more feminist take. It simply is not deep enough.” – Carla Meyer, San Francisco Chronicle

“What works best are the elements it takes from the original… While this version doesn’t always find its sea legs, there’s enough of those original ideas recreated here that it can’t go too far wrong.” – Alyssa Mora, IGN Movies

How is the production overall?

“Occasionally, the familiar pleasure of this fish-out-of-water story cuts through the murky execution, like a trinket catching a ray of moonlight while sinking to the seafloor.” – A.A. Dowd, Houston Chronicle

“This Little Mermaid feels more or less like two-hour-plus cosplay with the texture and gravitas of a Disneyland sideshow.” – Greg Nussen, Slant Magazine

“Its most iconic moments are borrowed and copied wholesale, serving as little more than a reminder of simpler days watching clamshell VHS tapes released from the Disney Vault. Maybe that’s enough for some people. But maybe, like Ariel, we should want more..” – Leigh Monson, AV ClubE

“As The Little Mermaid crawls by at a snail’s pace, the wondrous moments are weighed down by wasted opportunities for spectacle, emotion, and unapologetic bombast.” – Kristy Puchko, Mashable

Any final thoughts?

The Little Mermaid

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“A star-making turn from newcomer Halle Bailey and some poignant subtext about fathers and daughters elevates this latest Disney live-action remake.” – Kevin Maher, Times (UK)

“It serves as a handsome homage while persuasively making the case as its own discrete entity.” – Alex Diggins,Daily Telegraph (UK)

“A ho-hum adaptation buoyed by a lovely lead turn.” – Lovia Gyarkye, Hollywood Reporter

“‘The Little Mermaid,’ Disney’s latest live-action remake, is surprisingly good. In fact, it is the best one yet.” – Kaely Monahan, Arizona Republic

“This film is not perfect and the climax is lacking. But it is charming, funny, and sincere and it makes me want to be part of that world.” – Nicole Hill, Nerdist

“ The Little Mermaid captures the enchanting musical fantasy of the animated classic. Audiences will swoon as a beautiful mermaid falls in love with a dashing prince. Halle Bailey’s soaring vocals and radiant energy illuminates the underwater depths.” – Julian Roman, MovieWeb

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The Little Mermaid review – Halle Bailey goes full mermaidcore in Disney’s CGI remake

Bailey is the best thing about this film but, despite a team crammed with talent, this live action reworking can’t match the magic of the 1989 classic

H alle Bailey – with her huge eyes, soaring singing voice and palpable purity of spirit – is about as naturally Disneyfied as real human beings get. So it’s ironic that her casting as the titular Ariel was ever thought controversial . Bailey is both the finished film’s only unmitigated triumph and the best argument for this whole live action remake enterprise in one shimmering mermaidcore package. If these films are to have any purpose beyond being nostalgia-powered cash-ins, it must be to allow all children – not just the white ones – to see themselves as Magic Kingdom denizens.

But almost everything else about this flops about like a dying fish on deck. Most significantly this applies to the trio of comic-relief characters: Sebastian the crab, Flounder the fish and Scuttle the seabird. This is no fault of the talented voice cast: Daveed Diggs, Jacob Tremblay and Awkwafina, respectively. It’s just that things that are cute or funny when done by an anthropomorphised cartoon cuddlies are no longer cute or funny when done by computer-generated sea-life approximates with no recognisable facial expressions. Whole sequences of character interaction fondly remembered from its 1989 predecessor – Scuttle’s instructions on how to use a human “dinglehopper”, Flounder fleeing a shark attack – are rendered lifeless by CGI. And you’d be lucky to make much of it out through the murk of the underwater cinematography anyway.

It hurts because The Little Mermaid, the original, is a true classic. Its song-and-dance numbers are among the best in the Disney canon, melding diverse influences from Harry Belafonte calypso to Esther Williams’ 1940s aquamusicals, with the wiggle of legendary drag queen Divine. These have been revived, with original composer Alan Menken drafted in alongside Lin-Manuel Miranda to produce new toe-tappers like The Scuttlebutt. Once again though, performances are fatally undermined by performers: the northern gannet is justly renowned for its diving abilities, but this seabird species simply cannot musically emote. Maybe it’s the beak.

The Little Mermaid doesn’t lack for talent or audience goodwill – director Rob Marshall did wonders with Mary Poppins Returns – but the siren call of supposedly surefire box office has sunk it nonetheless. There is dry land in sight though, and it’s the same outcrop on which the House of Mouse was built: the realisation that some stories – the most magical ones, in fact – are best told with animation.

• Walt Disney Company
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• Halle Bailey
• Lin-Manuel Miranda

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Review: Halle Bailey makes a lovely ‘Little Mermaid,’ but this remake is less than shipshape

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“But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.” The line springs from Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid,” and it also graces the opening moments of Disney’s latest feature-length spin on that immortal fairy tale. Arriving amid mighty cascading walls of water and a few notes from Alan Menken’s justly beloved, mildly refurbished score, the quote is a classy if disingenuous flourish. Much like the studio’s 1989 hand-drawn touchstone , this ostensibly live-action but heavily digitized redo takes a famously tragic story and spins it into a drama of reckless teenage empowerment, populated by colorful under-the-sea critters and set to a rousing calypso beat. It has, in short, almost nothing to do with Hans Christian Andersen, and even less to do with suffering.

Unless, that is, you’re easily tormented by the sights and sounds of a peerless animated classic being padded, mimicked and CGI-fortified into a half-diverting, half-dispiriting retread of itself. Still, insofar as the animated “Little Mermaid” is easily the best movie to emerge from Disney’s late 20th century renaissance (bite me, “Beauty and the Beast” stans), this do-over is not entirely devoid of charm or amusement, including the unintentional kind. A mermaid may have no tears, but I did shed a few laughing whenever a breastplated, fish-tailed Javier Bardem showed up, solemnly peering out from behind a fake-looking curtain of hair and doing his best helicopter-dad grimace.

Bardem plays King Triton, though with his sternness of mien and delivery, he can’t help but channel one of his most famous roles: Call it “No Country for Old Mermen,” with a magical trident in lieu of a cattle gun. Triton is a wise ocean ruler, though he gets along less than swimmingly with Ariel (Halle Bailey), the most adventurous and impetuous of his teenage daughters. To her father’s chagrin, Ariel is obsessed with the human world, all the more so because access to that world is strictly forbidden to her and other merfolk. “I wanna be where the people are,” she sings in her secret grotto, where she keeps a small museum’s worth of human artifacts salvaged from nearby shipwrecks.

That tune, “Part of Your World,” remains one of the glorious highlights of Menken’s song score and — along with the equally singable “Under the Sea,” “Poor Unfortunate Souls” and “Kiss the Girl” — a testament to the enduring brilliance of the late lyricist Howard Ashman . It also serves as the first real test of this movie’s mettle, and especially of Bailey’s performance in the title role. Perched on the ocean floor, her long green tail shimmering and her long rust-red hair flowing out behind her, this Ariel is a familiar but luminous vision — defiantly pro-human as ever, yet also a gentler kind of rebel spirit than her animated predecessor. Crucially, too, Bailey has the set of pipes that every Ariel needs and a gift for modulating her emotions through music, shifting from a rich, confident vibrato one moment to a hesitant quaver the next.

If Bailey is less expressive in her non-singing moments — a flaw built into the story itself, once Ariel is magically divested of her voice — she nonetheless makes an empathetic, eminently see-worthy heroine. Not everyone will agree, which is fine. Ridiculously, some chose to disagree from the moment they heard a Black actor would be playing a character originally conceived as white — a choice that naturally affronted a lot of racists (or, as they’d surely like to think of themselves, purists). The dispiriting torrent of abuse directed at Bailey’s casting has revealed a lot about how rigidly (and yet so selectively!) protective some fans can get about their precious childhood totems. Speaking as someone with no small attachment to “The Little Mermaid” himself, I’m mystified anyone would be more appalled by the idea of a Black mermaid than, say, the complete omission of Chef Louis and “Les Poissons.” Now there’s an outrage.

Otherwise, for the most part, this “Little Mermaid” flows as you’d expect it to — though, at north of two hours (compared with the original’s 83 minutes), it flows a good deal more slowly. Ariel’s anthropological interest in humans morphs into full-blown romantic longing once she lays eyes on the hunky Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King, dashing yet drippy) and rescues him when his ship capsizes in a storm. From there, it doesn’t take long for her to tumble into a trap laid by Ursula (Melissa McCarthy), the many-tentacled sea witch who puts the poulpe in this fiction. Ursula transforms Ariel into a human, but only for three days (with an option to extend if Eric smooches her), and minus her voice. This bargain, if that’s the word, comes straight from the original movie, though by now it sounds like a challenge straight out of reality TV.

Funnily enough, McCarthy’s Ursula has been robbed of some of her own voice, and not just because her high vocal pitch is a far cry from the great Pat Carroll’s deep, insinuating contralto. “Yes on land, it’s much preferred / for ladies not to say a word,” Ursula once sang in “Poor Unfortunate Souls” — a passage that’s been excised here, likely in response to the ludicrous concern that kids might be swayed by a villain’s anti-feminist rant. That excess of caution is also apparent in the more timid, buttoned-up way McCarthy’s Ursula has been visualized: She’s a far cry from Ursula the memorably Divine-inspired queer icon, with her full red lips, heaving breasts and air of vampily seductive menace.

The problem, to be sure, isn’t that the director Rob Marshall and the screenwriter David Magee (who last collaborated on the misbegotten “Mary Poppins Returns” ) have deviated too much from a sacred text. On the contrary, it’s that they haven’t deviated from it nearly enough. What’s on-screen too often feels like wan, second-rate imitation, and the few differences seem motivated less by a spirit of imagination than one of joyless anxiety.

Here and there Magee does attempt something narratively novel, as when he hints at a long history of aggression between Triton’s merpeople and their human adversaries — an underdeveloped thread that nonetheless hints at a deeper mythology. He’s also tried to make Ariel a tougher, more confrontational heroine, and to give Eric a more vulnerable, full-bodied character arc. (To that end, the prince is given a new song, written by Menken and Lin-Manuel Miranda, whose title and tune I can’t remember; you won’t, either.) For all that, there’s a genuine warmth and freshness to the moments when Eric begins to fall for the human Ariel, including a charming new scene in which they pore over books and maps in his personal library.

This “Little Mermaid” could afford to take more such liberties. I’d suggest a few brutal ones myself: For starters, cut out or kill off Sebastian the worrywart crab (Daveed Diggs) and Flounder the friendly flatfish (Jacob Tremblay), two visually unappealing reminders that some things — some gloriously cartoonish things — simply don’t translate well into creepily dead-eyed photorealist form. (Exhibit A: the entire cast of 2019’s pointless remake of “The Lion King.” ) Awkwafina can stay on as Scuttle the endearingly bird-brained seagull, though her annoying rap number should probably sleep with the CGI fishes.

Marshall has never been a great musical stylist; even “Chicago,” his Oscar-winning debut feature, was a chopped-up eyesore, and his “Into the Woods” was so murky in parts it may as well have been shot under the sea itself. “The Little Mermaid,” as filmed by Marshall’s regular cinematographer, Dion Beebe, has its visually garish moments, most of them in an underwater kingdom that looks like especially thin soup next to the recent “Avatar: The Way of Water.” But down in the depths it does find stray passages of beauty — in the fabric-like plumage of the mermaids’ tails and especially in the pull-out-the-stops staging of “Under the Sea,” still the movie’s most rousing number. Presented as a coral-reef explosion of color and aquatic wildlife that almost approaches the original’s surreal, kaleidoscopic grandeur, it’s a bouillabaisse that Busby Berkeley would be proud of.

‘The Little Mermaid’

Rating: PG, for action/peril and some scary images Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes Playing: Starts May 26 in general release

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• DVD & Streaming

The Little Mermaid (2023)

• Comedy , Drama , Musical , Romance

Content Caution

In Theaters

• May 26, 2023
• Halle Bailey as Ariel; Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric; Melissa McCarthy as Ursula; Javier Bardem as King Triton; Daveed Diggs as Sebastian; Jacob Tremblay as Flounder; Awkwafina as Scuttle; Art Malik as Sir Grimsby; Noma Dumezweni as Queen Selina

Home Release Date

• July 8, 2023
• Rob Marshall

Distributor

• Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures; Disney+

Movie Review

Ariel likes the ocean. She really does.

And well she should. She’s a princess, after all—not just any ol’ princess, either, but youngest daughter of King Triton, emperor of the Earth’s Seven Seas. Given that 71% of the planet is water, that’s a pretty big empire. Rome? The British Empire? Pish. Small, dry potatoes compared to Triton’s domain. And as Triton’s beloved daughter, Ariel wants for nothing. She can have absolutely anything she wants—as long as it’s, y’know, underwater .

And therein lies the problem.

You know how teens can be. They think the seaweed always grows greener on the other side of the reef. And Ariel is fascinated by that other 29% of the planet: the dry side.

Yes, she knows that those humans —those creatures with their funny feet—tend catch some of her scaly friends and eat them. Sure, Ariel’s own mother met her end at the point of an ill-placed harpoon. But humans can’t be all bad, can they?

Yes , thinks King Triton. Yes, they can.

The king hopes his daughter’s fascination with the surface world is a fad, like all kids go through. She’s testing the limits, pushing boundaries, exploring new ideas. Why, teens on the surface do it all the time. These youngsters come to their senses eventually.

Perhaps Ariel would’ve, too.

But when the teen pops her head above water one night, she sees stars, and fireworks, and a ship sailing proud and strong. And on that ship she sees … him . A handsome young sailor with feet that move and shift as gracefully as any mackerel or tuna.

When the ship encounters a terrible surface storm, and the young man—Prince Eric—takes a tumble into the sea, Ariel knows she can’t let him drown. She must save him.

So she does. And as Eric wakes up, as Ariel sings her powerful siren song to him, something happens in that forbidden moment of contact: Something catches spark. In that instant, the two now connect in a way that King Triton wouldn’t understand—and if he did, he’d be horrified.

The land has always held a powerful pull for Ariel. But love pulls stronger still. It tugs like the undertow and is as implacable as the current.

And this new thing, this new feeling, just might sweep Ariel away.

Positive Elements

Let’s start with the obvious: Regardless of what Daddy Triton might say, saving Eric was a good thing. We should always try to rescue people from drowning, whether we have tails and scales or not. That act creates some wide-reaching ripples that not only touch Ariel and Eric, but two very different societies.

The surface world and Triton’s underwater realm are deeply hostile to each other as the story begins. In the opening scene, several sailors are doing their best to harpoon what they think is a mermaid, believing that mermaids lure men to their deaths. Below the surface, Triton believes that humankind itself is bad—a bias made exponentially stronger because humans killed his wife.

But (and I hope I’m not spoiling anything here) Eric and Ariel’s relationship eventually helps the process of healing: Both Triton and Eric’s mother, Queen Selina, realize that they were both wrong about painting the other side with so broad a brush. And while humankind and merfolk are inherently very different people, we see the beginnings of a better relationship between the two.

Another thing to note: King Triton makes a few mistakes in curbing his daughter’s interests and passions. But he loves Ariel deeply—so deeply, in fact, that he’s willing to sacrifice a great deal, including himself, for her.

Spiritual Elements

Magic comes by the gallon here, and its primary practitioner is, of course, Ursula, the Sea Witch. Using a variety of ingredients kept in glowing containers, she magically gives Ariel a pair of legs in exchange for Ariel’s voice. And that voice itself is, in this telling, magic itself: We’re told that the voice of a mermaid is a powerful “siren song” that can charm those who hear it. (That ability stems from Greek mythology, by the way; the song of Sirens would lure sailors to their death).

Triton’s trident is also magical. He uses it to zap a bevy of surface artifacts and to grant a special boon to someone. And when it falls into the wrong hands, we see just how powerful it can be.

Citizens of Queen Selina’s island kingdom (and the queen herself) lament the number of ships recently sunk: “Shipwrecks,” Selina grumbles. “Hurricanes. The sea gods are against us.”

Sexual Content

Ariel and her fellow merfolk are dressed slightly more modestly than they were in the 1989 animated film. Instead of Ariel wearing a pair of seashells, for instance, she has a wide band of fabric-like stuff wrapped around her chest. But despite those efforts, the film feels slightly more titillating: We are, of course, talking about real flesh-and-blood people in these mer-garments, so all the bare shoulders and belly buttons (and in the case of mer-guys, exposed torsos) we see may be more sensually distracting for some.

Of special note: When Ariel becomes a human, she transforms sans clothes. We don’t see anything critical, of course. But whereas the animated Ariel was covered almost immediately by an old sail or something, our live-action mermaid is covered only in her own hair. Later, we see Ariel taking a bath, and the camera catches her from the shoulders up. It’s a scene taken directly from the original, but again, it has a different vibe in this live-action take.

In the original film, Ariel needed to get the prince to kiss her within three days. That’s still true here. But in an era where girls are just as likely to make the first moves on guys, and to sidestep questions of romantic manipulation, the 2023 version makes a subtle switch. Thanks to Ursula’s magic, Ariel doesn’t remember that the prince needs to kiss her at all. She only knows that she likes the guy. It’s up to Ariel’s friends to encourage Eric to plant a smooch during the classic song “Kiss the Girl,” while Ariel is truly innocent of any ulterior intent. The lyrics also have been tweaked to reflect a bit more consensual intent.

We do, of course, see (sea?) kissing. The voluptuous Ursula does press her hands underneath her breasts at times (as we saw in the original movie), but her outfit doesn’t bare shoulders. And a critical verse—the one that includes the line, “and don’t forget about the importance of body language”—has been removed in the live-action version. Eric is sometimes seen with an open shirt.

I know many readers will be curious: I didn’t notice any LGBT content in the movie. There are efforts online, however, to re-interpret the original Hans Christian Anderson story, The Little Mermaid, as a tale of unrequited gay love.

Violent Content

A ship is set on fire and destroyed during a fierce storm at sea.  Prince Eric nearly drowns. Sailors try to harpoon a sea creature they mistake for a mermaid. (The harpoons miss their targets.)

Ariel takes Eric on a dangerous carriage ride. Triton uses his magic trident to destroy a great many artifacts. Someone is killed by the trident, with the body turning into ash. Electric eels bind characters and shock them. A shark makes a scary attack on Ariel and her fish friend, Flounder. Scuttle, the bird, misspeaks about what Ariel’s supposed to do with Eric. “Has Ariel killed the prince yet?” she asks.

This may be a spoiler for those who didn’t see the original animated film: A climactic sea battle features a very large, very angry Ursula trying to kill a character. She’s eventually stopped in the act by the impaling prow of a ship.

Crude or Profane Language

Drug and alcohol content, other negative elements.

Ariel and Eric’s love story is sweet and disarming. It’s also rather problematic from a parents’ point of view. Ariel disobeys and ultimately defies her father. And while Ariel’s age is never given, we can assume that she’s not of legal age to make her own decisions or run off with anyone, even if he is a prince. Certainly, if Ariel was a 16-year-old human, her relationship with Eric would take on a darker hue, and we’d view her teenage rebellion a little more harshly.

Eric lies to his mother, too, and he sneaks out of the castle against her explicit wishes.

But both parents exasperate their children as well. Triton certainly overreacts at one point in the movie; meanwhile, Queen Selina can be shortsighted in both her treatment of Eric and the health of her own kingdom.

Anthropomorphic animals verbally fight and belittle one another, albeit comically so.

Disney has never been one to turn down a chance to make a buck. But you can understand why they would’ve waited so long to remake their 1989 classic.

If 1937’s Snow White began Disney’s animated legend, The Little Mermaid revived it. It marked the dawn of what folks call the Disney Renaissance and headed a string of undisputed critical and commercial hits: Beauty and the Beast; Aladdin; The Lion King ; etc. People grew up loving this movie, which raises the stakes for any remake. And honestly, with its partly underwater setting and mix of humanoid and animal characters, it’d be an easy story to mess up. Given the mixed results of Disney’s live-action remake efforts recently, the Mouse House needed to swim carefully.

But this version works. Mostly.

The 2023 version of The Little Mermaid feels more like an homage to the original as it does a remake. Lines of dialogue and whole scenes feel like they were plucked straight from the animated film and redone, shot-for-shot. The film is still about a headstrong mermaid and her love for the land. The story still hinges, remarkably, on true love’s kiss. For the most part, this still feels like the comfortably old-fashioned fairy tale that the world fell in love with 35 years ago.

Oh, yes, we see some changes. Most of the media has focused on the diverse cast in play, but that’s a strength, not a weakness. The film also seeks to move Ariel out of damsel-in-distress territory and turn her into a hero in her own right; those choices can feel a little false in the context of the film, but I get the impulse. The new version unveils a couple of new, powerhouse songs that I’m assuming we’ll hear again come Oscar season.

Ironically, the family-friendly problems this film has, in fact, are more often than not drawn straight from the original rather than being shiny new additions. The skin we see is more problematic because it’s real; the scary, violent climax—jarring for a Disney animated film back in the day—is still pretty intense. The willful disobedience we see from Ariel and others shouldn’t be ignored, but those issues were certainly in full force from 1989, too. If anything, Disney’s dialed back the content, not dialed it up.

The movie doesn’t just take its forerunner and turn it into something new. It embraces it—and gives us something rather familiar.

And maybe the biggest question the movie leaves us with is a simple one: Why remake it at all?

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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'The Little Mermaid' is the latest of Disney's poor unfortunate remakes

Aisha Harris

Halle Bailey stars as Ariel in Disney's live-action The Little Mermaid — the studio's latest blatant cash-grab. Giles Keyte/Disney hide caption

Halle Bailey stars as Ariel in Disney's live-action The Little Mermaid — the studio's latest blatant cash-grab.

Search for " The Little Mermaid side-by-side," and you'll land upon several user-created videos drawing visual comparisons between Disney's 1989 hand-drawn animated hit and the trailer for the new star-studded "live-action" remake directed by Rob Marshall. Many of the shots – Ariel breaching the water's surface while dramatically tossing her long red locks behind her, for one – are so eerily similar in composition that they almost present as carbon copies.

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This is, of course, by design; the studio wants viewers to notice its ongoing commitment to recycling. At this point, Disney has its formula down pat: Take one of its beloved traditionally animated properties, update its sensibilities for modern audiences just a bit, recast it with a bunch of familiar faces and voices, and rehash it all in "live-action"/CGI form. And over the last couple of decades, it's consistently worked, often to the maniacal tune of around a billion dollars at the box office.

To paraphrase Horatio Thelonious Ignacious Crustaceous Sebastian: Disney, hmph! We give it an inch, and it swims all over us!

Time will tell if Marshall's Little Mermaid will make a billion dollars – I certainly wouldn't bet against it – but the rest of the ingredients in this superfluous seafood stew have already been stirred into the pot. The movie stars Halle Bailey as Ariel, the headstrong merprincess obsessed with the human world and who longs to be a part of it, much to her anti-human merfather King Triton's (Javier Bardem) chagrin. So when she falls in love with the handsomely bland human prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King), she makes a deal with Ursula (Melissa McCarthy), the slinky sea witch, and trades in her voice to become a human herself.

Halle Bailey as Ariel and Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric in Disney's live-action The Little Mermaid. Disney hide caption

But there's a catch; a mute Ariel must woo Eric enough to grant her a kiss of true love within three days, or else she'll be back under the sea and under Ursula's control. (In a tweak from the original movie, Ursula slips a mickey in Ariel's spell that makes it so she's unable to remember needing that kiss; I, for one, did not have Ursula 2.0 being even dastardlier on my Disney live-action reheats bingo card.) With the help of her faithful animal sidekicks Flounder (Jacob Tremblay), Sebastian (Daveed Diggs, who made the baffling choice to keep the faux Caribbean-ish patois), and Awkwafina (who, thankfully, no longer has that Blaccent ), Ariel ultimately gets her man, her voice, and her father on her side.

The primary function of this cynical exercise is to induce in viewers a warped combination of nostalgia and déjà vu, so as such, there are only two ways to measure its merits. The first is to stack it up against its peers; in this case, The Little Mermaid 2.0 is not oppressively atrocious in the way Aladdin 2.0 and Pinocchio 2.0 are. Like the decent Beauty and the Beast 2.0, there are a handful of moments and a performance or two that manage to stand out amid the cacophony of uncanny, deadening CGI. McCarthy's Ursula feels both akin to Pat Carroll's indelible voice performance in the original and, at certain moments, stands on its own, especially during the perfect villain song "Poor Unfortunate Souls."

Melissa McCarthy as Ursula in Disney's live-action The Little Mermaid. Disney hide caption

When measured against its origin story, however, Little Mermaid suffers from the same ailments almost all of these remakes have: Being "progressive" while also creatively uninspired. Unlike the 1989 version, (mer)people of color abound; Noma Dumezweni plays Prince Eric's mom, and Ariel's sisters appear to be of various races and ethnicities. Much ado has been made about Bailey's casting as Ariel, as she's only the first Black Disney princess since Disney's first official Black princess Tiana, in The Princess and the Frog .

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It's certainly lovely and, to a degree, important that a new generation of kids will have Bailey to look to, just as my generation had Brandy in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella . Yet while Bailey is charming and expressive, her interpretation of Ariel doesn't fully embrace the edgier, mischievous side of the character that came across so clearly in the 1989 version's animation and as voiced by Jodi Benson. Nor can a Black Ariel make up for subpar renditions of classic songs (the vibrant Oscar-winner "Under the Sea" is dead in the water here) and the cringe-y addition of new songs by the studio's current go-to music man Lin-Manuel Miranda, which include a dull, forgettable ballad for Prince Eric and a ridiculous "rap" for Scuttle and Sebastian called – wait for it – "The Scuttlebutt." Or the fact that the underwater scenes have a flattened sheen reminiscent of video games circa the early 2000s.

Javier Bardem as King Triton in Disney's live-action The Little Mermaid. Disney hide caption

At this point, I'll note it was awfully difficult to resist playing along with Disney's game and doing a straight-up copy-and-paste of my past lamentations of its remake rut for this review: How " an old wealthy businessman " has seemingly put a terrible curse on the studio, dooming it to an eternity of recycling old properties. How the last century of Disney's massive cultural influence on beauty standards, racial stereotypes, and gender roles will not be magically undone by attempts to "correct" for its past sins in bloated remakes. How it should go after its forgotten/cult films rather than messing with the classics. (Be careful what you wish for because you will end up living in a world where a dreadful Aladdin remake and a Questlove-directed "live-action" The Aristocats co-exist.)

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I've barely managed to avoid self-plagiarizing, but this is where we are at this point. The behemoth is so barnacled to this tired playbook that it took less than a decade to announce it will remake the Little Mermaid -inspired 2016 hit Moana . (Come on, at least give the kids of that era a chance to graduate high school first!) So long as the studio keeps churning these things out, the experiences as a viewer will remain the same. But, hey, at least the formula is working well for one of us – Disney, obviously. My nostalgia for the 1989 Little Mermaid , a movie I can quote by heart, has probably never been stronger than it is now. Neither has my wearied sense of déjà vu.

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The little mermaid, common sense media reviewers.

Superb, entertaining animated musical has some scary stuff.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Kids can try to name all the sea creatures -- crab

This movie places high value on romance and the co

Ariel is adventuresome, rebellious, and brave. She

On the positive side, Sebastian is voiced by a Bla

Ariel's father is imprisoned by the sea witch, Urs

The entire movie revolves around Ariel's crush on

Name-calling includes "idiot" and "tramp."

Ariel is a very popular Disney princess, whose bra

Characters handle a pipe.

Parents need to know that The Little Mermaid is based on the classic Hans Christian Andersen story and has some scary moments. In a tense climactic scene, Ursula (voiced by Pat Carroll) grows into a giant and wields a trident with deadly intent. A bloodthirsty French chef (Rene Auberjonois) merrily chases…

Educational Value

Kids can try to name all the sea creatures -- crabs, oysters, dolphins, etc. -- when Sebastian sings "Under the Sea." They can also look up the original (much darker) story by Hans Christian Andersen and decide which version they like better.

Positive Messages

This movie places high value on romance and the concept of true love: Ariel is so enamored with Prince Eric that she sacrifices everything, from her family to her voice, in order to be part of his world. Many think this storyline is problematic because it reinforces the idea that a woman should give up her pursuits and opinions in deference to a man. But others can put this concept aside to enjoy the sweetness of the central character and the universal challenges of love. Other themes include curiosity and perseverance.

Positive Role Models

Ariel is adventuresome, rebellious, and brave. She also gives up everything -- her family, her home, her voice -- for love, even though her trust in the sea witch puts everyone she loves in danger. Eric doesn't show much of a personality. Sebastian is loyal and tries hard to help Ariel even though he doesn't agree with what she's doing. Ariel's father is protective and will do anything to help save his daughter.

Diverse Representations

On the positive side, Sebastian is voiced by a Black American actor (Samuel E. Wright) and is Trinidadian, at least according to his accent. Viewers also follow main characters who are women, like Ariel and Ursula, but they're pitted against each other, and Ariel's story is centered around romance. She's also fairly passive, needing to be kissed by Eric in order to break her curse. The film also dabbles in fatphobia and queerphobia: Ariel is extremely thin, while the villain is fat and queer-coded (Ursula is based on the drag queen Divine). Louis falls into French stereotypes of being a chef who has a thick accent (used for humor) and says phrases like "sacré bleu" and "zut alors."

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Ariel's father is imprisoned by the sea witch, Ursula, who, in the climactic scenes, grows larger than a ship and tries to crush it wielding a giant trident. Ursula brags about all the merpeople she's imprisoned, and those "poor unfortunate souls" are shown shrunken down and sad. A French chef runs around the kitchen after Sebastian the crab with a cleaver and merrily chops up other fish. Eric almost drowns when his ship sinks in stormy waters, and there's a frantic scene in which Ariel is chased by a great white shark. Arguments, destruction of beloved possessions, and tension. Spoiler alert! Ursula dies rather dramatically in the end.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

The entire movie revolves around Ariel's crush on Prince Eric and her desire to be with him. One sweet-natured song is all about getting two characters to kiss. Mermen swim topless; mermaids wear shell bras. When Ariel transforms into a human, she's briefly naked from the waist down (sensitive areas are shadowed and/or underwater).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Ariel is a very popular Disney princess, whose brand reaches far and wide, with princess branding on consumer merchandise, food products, etc. as well as in books, websites, and other media.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

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Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Little Mermaid is based on the classic Hans Christian Andersen story and has some scary moments. In a tense climactic scene, Ursula (voiced by Pat Carroll) grows into a giant and wields a trident with deadly intent. A bloodthirsty French chef ( Rene Auberjonois ) merrily chases after Sebastian the crab (Samuel E. Wright) with a cleaver, hoping to make him the main course. There are also scenes with storms, arguments, destruction of beloved possessions, and tension. Romance is central to the story, with Ariel ( Jodi Benson ) sacrificing everything, from her family to her voice, to (hopefully) be with the man she falls in love with at first glance. That aspect has long troubled some viewers, as has the film's fatphobia (main characters are extremely thin and/or muscled; villain Ursula is fat). Ariel is a very popular Disney princess with a brand that reaches far and wide. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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• Parents say (60)
• Kids say (96)

Based on 60 parent reviews

A classic that is being belittled by nonsensical complaints.

Not the movie i thought it was, what's the story.

THE LITTLE MERMAID tells the story of Ariel (voiced by Jodi Benson ), a mermaid princess who's fascinated by humans, collecting their artifacts that she finds in the sea. One day, she rescues Prince Eric ( Christopher Daniel Barnes ), who was thrown from his ship during a storm -- and she falls in love. Desperate for the chance to have a life with Eric, Ariel enters into an agreement with a sea witch, Ursula (Pat Carroll). Ariel gives up her voice in exchange for legs, hoping to win Eric and become part of his world. But she only has three days to seal the deal. If he doesn't kiss her in that time, she'll belong to Ursula forever.

Is It Any Good?

After some lackluster years, Disney came back into the top rank of animated features with this superbly entertaining musical. Based loosely on the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen (but with a much happier ending), The Little Mermaid 's princess was refreshingly plucky when the movie came out in 1989. Though Ariel still must wait for a prince's kiss for her dreams to come true, she shows spirit and curiosity, taking action in order to meet him.

The wonderful voice cast includes Buddy Hackett ( The Music Man ) as Scuttle the scavenging seagull and Samuel E. Wright as Sebastian, the calypso-singing crab. The first-class musical score by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman (who also worked together on the off-Broadway hit Little Shop of Horrors ) ranks with the best of Broadway and won Oscars for Best Score and Best Song ("Under the Sea"). While The Little Mermaid does provide yet another wasp-waisted Disney princess whose whole world revolves around a man, Ariel is adventuresome, rebellious, and brave. And the fact that she makes the mistake of giving up her voice to the sea witch (a very strong female character, to say the least), provides a good opportunity for family discussion.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about villains and how The Little Mermaid portrays Ursula. Why is she both a little scary and a little fun?

Why do you think Ariel chooses to give up her voice (and her family) for Eric in The Little Mermaid ? Are you troubled by the message her decision sends about women and their priorities, or is that overthinking this kind of movie?

Talk about Disney princesses. How often do you see your favorite princesses on display when you're shopping ? Does watching this movie make you want to buy more Ariel stuff?

Why do you think Sebastian tries to help Ariel even though he doesn't agree with what she's doing?

How do the characters in The Little Mermaid demonstrate curiosity and perseverance ? Why are these important character strengths ?

Movie Details

• In theaters : November 15, 1989
• On DVD or streaming : October 1, 2013
• Cast : Jodi Benson , Christopher Daniel Barnes , Samuel E. Wright
• Directors : Ron Clements , John Musker
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Walt Disney Pictures
• Genre : Family and Kids
• Topics : Magic and Fantasy , Princesses, Fairies, Mermaids, and More , Book Characters , Music and Sing-Along , Ocean Creatures
• Character Strengths : Curiosity , Perseverance
• Run time : 83 minutes
• MPAA rating : G
• MPAA explanation : Nada que pueda ofender a los padres para ser visto por los niños.
• Last updated : January 31, 2024

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The Little Mermaid (I) (2023)

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Movie Review: Disenchantment under the sea in live-action ‘The Little Mermaid’

This image released by Disney shows Halle Bailey as Ariel in “The Little Mermaid.” (Disney via AP)

This image released by Disney shows Halle Bailey as Ariel, left, and Javier Bardem as King Triton in “The Little Mermaid.” (Disney via AP)

This image released by Disney shows Halle Bailey as Ariel and Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric in “The Little Mermaid.” (Disney via AP)

This image released by Disney shows Halle Bailey as Ariel, left, and Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric in “The Little Mermaid.” (Disney via AP)

This image released by Disney shows Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric, left, and Halle Bailey as Ariel in “The Little Mermaid.” (Disney via AP)

This image released by Disney shows Melissa McCarthy as Ursula in “The Little Mermaid.” (Disney via AP)

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It’s not Rob Marshall’s fault that Disney’s latest live-action retread doesn’t really sing. “The Little Mermaid,” a somewhat drab undertaking with sparks of bioluminescence, suffers from the same fundamental issues that plagued “The Lion King,” “Aladdin” and “Beauty and the Beast.” Halle Bailey might be a lovely presence and possesses a superb voice that is distinctly different from Jodi Benson’s, but photorealistic fins, animals and environments do not make Disney fairy tales more enchanting on their own.

The essential problem is that the live-action films have prioritized nostalgia and familiarity over compelling visual storytelling. They try to recreate beats and shots from their animated predecessors, defiantly ignoring the possibility that certain musical sequences and choices were enchanting and vibrant because they were animated, not in spite of it.

There was, in the 1989 film, a sparkling awe to everything. The underwater castle. The mermaids. Eric’s ship. Even Ariel’s bright red hair. Combined with the wonderful songs and lyrics by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, it’s not hard to understand why it helped fuel a Disney Animation renaissance.

Anyone who has gone through the recent Disney’s live-action library would be right to approach “The Little Mermaid” with caution. Still, there’s excitement as the camera takes us underwater to give us our first glimpse of the mermaids — even after a somewhat ominous quote from Hans Christian Anderson that begins the movie (“But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers much more”). You can’t help but be hopeful. But the first mermaid that comes into focus doesn’t so much evoke wonder as it does a flashback of Ben Stiller’s merman in “Zoolander.” The technology is better, sure, but the result is about the same. Worse, as we spend more time with them, following Ariel’s multicultural sisters as they gather around their father King Triton (Javier Bardem), it’s hard to shake a distinctly uncanny valley feeling. It’s like gazing in on a roundtable of AI supermodels with fins.

For all its pizazz, everything about this “Little Mermaid” is just more muted. Miranda’s new songs are odd, too, and don’t seem to fit. Prince Eric’s (Jonah Hauer-King) makes sense, maybe even Ariel’s in-her-head anthem after she gives her voice to Melissa McCarthy’s Ursula, but did Scuttle really need a song, too?

Speaking of Scuttle, the cute cartoons that stood in for Ariel’s seagull, crab and fish friends have been replaced with horrifyingly accurate depictions of said animals. Awkwafina’s comedy charms can only go so far while looking like an actual seagull who might be after your chips at the beach. Close-ups of its beady blue eyes are unsettling, though it was probably a good call to go blue over gold, which looks a bit demonic even in the cartoon. Sometimes it seems as though the editor is trying to minimize the unpleasantness by quickly cutting away from Scuttle. Flounder (Jacob Tremblay, who also voiced Luca) doesn’t have this problem as much, mainly because once they go out of the water he’s essentially hidden under the surface. Daveed Digg’s Sebastian gets off easy, looking the most pleasantly cartoonish. But then there’s that Jamaican accent that they decided to carry over (and this in a movie that adds a line about consent to “Kiss the Girl”).

Visibility is a problem for more than just Flounder, too. Sometimes “The Little Mermaid’s” underwater sequences just look too underwater. Things are cloudy and dull and hard to see, once again probably in the name of authenticity, but straining to see what Marshall and the scores of VFX teams have labored on for years is not a pleasant experience. This could be a projection issue — I wasn’t in an especially high-tech theater with color enhancing upgrades. But that also means anyone without access to things like Dolby Vision around the world will have this issue, too. When Sebastian brings out the most colorful fish he can find for the “Under the Sea” number, you even start to empathize with Ariel a little bit. It is the exact opposite of the “ Avatar: The Way of Water ” experience.

“The Little Mermaid,” a Walt Disney Co. release in theaters Friday, is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association for “action/peril, some scary images.” Running time: 135 minutes. Two stars out of four.

MPA Definition of PG: Parental guidance suggested.

Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr .