Review: 'The Little Mermaid' is too much and not enough like the original, though the casting of Halle Bailey and Melissa McCarthy is inspired
Disney’s latest attempt to turn its animated classics into live-action and computer-generated copies, “The Little Mermaid,” is a betwixt-and-between movie — never recapturing the magic of the 1989 original when it follows too closely, and never quite succeeding in creating anything fresh where it tries to diverge from its predecessor.
The story remains the same: Ariel (here played by Halle Bailey) — the headstrong seventh daughter of King Triton (Javier Bardem), ruler of the seas — is fascinated with the humans on the land world, especially after she rescues the bold Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) from a shipwreck. Triton sends his majordomo, the crab Sebastian (voiced by Daveed Diggs) to watch over Ariel, who is offered a devil’s bargain by the sea witch Ursula (Melissa McCarthy), to be given legs and lungs in exchange for her siren’s voice, so she can meet Eric on his turf.
Director Rob Marshall, who has fully ensconced himself in the Disney system after “Mary Poppins Returns” and “Into the Woods,” seems eager to duplicate the ’89, but by giving us mostly photo-realistic sea creatures cavorting and dancing to “Under the Sea.” Having realistic sea creatures turns out to be more creepy than cute, especially when showing us Sebastian looking like a crab rather than the animated version’s Disney-ready plush toy. Same goes for Scuttle (voiced by Awkwafina), who looks more raggedy as a real-looking seagull.
Marshall and his “Mary Poppins Returns” co-screenwriter, David Magee, add one positive element to the story: They give Eric a personality. It’s almost the same as Ariel’s — bristling at the restrictions place on him by his mother, Queen Selina (Norma Dumezweni), and desiring to find adventure out there on the water. The movie even gives Eric an “I want” song, by composer Alan Menken and new lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda, but it’s not a patch on Ariel’s “Part of Your World,” by Menken and the late Howard Ashman.
Marshall & Co. opted to bowdlerize some of Ashman’s lyrics, mostly in the romantic “Kiss the Girl” and Ursula’s vampy “Poor Unfortunate Souls” — in an effort to excise the old songs’ bawdier, and less consent-driven, phrases. They also remove the original’s funniest number, the chef’s playfully murderous “Les Poissons” (maybe because this movie’s Sebastian would look more natural in melted butter). In its place, Miranda has written “The Scuttlebutt,” a comedic rap performed by Awkwafina and Diggs that isn’t as strong as you would expect from those three great talents.
With so much wrong in this telling of “The Little Mermaid,” what the movie gets right is the casting. Bailey, who came up through the Disney child-star system with her sister Chloe, captures Ariel’s wide-eyed sense of wonder, and has the singing chops to land Menken and Ashman’s yearning songs. And McCarthy, taking on the role Pat Carroll voiced so perfectly, delivers those shots of comic villainy that make Ursula such a fun character to watch — though it would be nice if the movie let us see her clearly through the murky lighting.
One might have thought “The Little Mermaid,” being the movie that started Disney’s animated renaissance, would have been put off limits from the reboot machine. But that, alas, was wishful thinking. The good news is that the original remains on DVD shelves in homes everywhere — and on Disney+, until they lock it away in the vault again.
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‘The Little Mermaid’
★★
Opens Friday, May 26, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for action/peril and some scary images. Running time: 135 minutes.