The Little Mermaid (2023)

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After receiving backlash due to the casting of an African-American woman as the mermaid princess, Ariel (who was depicted as white in the animated 1989 film), The Little Mermaid was released to theaters in May 2023 to mixed reviews. Interestingly enough, it was director Rob Marshall’s fourth theatrical film for Disney after having directed Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (also featuring a mermaid), Into the Woods, and Mary Poppins Returns.

Did I think this was the best film under the sea? Read on to find out!

And remember, SPOILERS AHEAD!

The film begins in wild Caribbean waters where the Coral Moon is about to take place. This is the night where King Triton of the Seas, played by Javier Bardem, convenes with his mermaid daughters played by Lorena Andrea, Simone Ashley, Karolina Conchet, Sienna King, Kajsa Mohammar, and Nathalie Sorrell.

The human world assumes this is the night that the mermaids lure men to their deaths, but in actuality, it’s…well, I’m not exactly sure what the night’s for other than a family reunion. However King Triton’s youngest daughter, Ariel, played by Halle Bailey, appears to be missing. Where is she? She’s out exploring an abandoned shipwreck with her best friend, Flounder, voiced by Jacob Tremblay.

Ariel is simply amazed with the human world, so exploring the shipwreck is a real treasure to her! However her excursion ends quickly when a shark chases her and Flounder away.

When she returns to her father, she gets a talking-to as her father has forbidden her from from furthering her obsession with humans. Ariel’s mother was killed by a human and ever since then, King Triton has been against humans. However Ariel sees the human world as a much more beautiful place based on the objects she’s collected over the years. We see some of this “human stuff” when she returns to her grotto and sings that classic song, Part of Your World.

After the song ends, Ariel notices colorful lights at the surface and decides to approach the surface for the first time, deliberately disobeying her father’s orders never to go to the surface. She sees fireworks being set off and notices a ship with a bunch of humans aboard including the handsome Prince Eric, played by Jonah Hauer-King. Ariel is amazed at what she sees (including Prince Eric), but a storm soon hits forcing all the humans off the ship. Prince Eric almost drowns, but Ariel manages to save him and take him to shore. She sings a set of notes that wakes him up from unconsciousness, but quickly flees back into the sea when she sees other humans approaching.

Later, King Triton’s majordomo crab, Sebastian, voiced by Daveed Diggs, has a talk with Ariel about her going to the surface (which he witnessed). King Triton put him in charge of keeping an eye on Ariel and Sebastian tries to convince Ariel that everything she needs in life is right here under the sea via the classic song, Under the Sea.

Back at his palace on their Caribbean island, Prince Eric tells his mother, Queen Selina, played by Noma Dumezweni, about the girl who saved his life. Well actually, she’s his adopted mother. Apparently he was found as a young boy in a shipwreck and raised by the King (now deceased) and Queen as well as the minister, Sir Grimsby, played by Art Malik. He has no idea what Ariel looked like, but makes it his mission to find her. He even gets his own song to sing, Wild Uncharted Waters, a new song written for this remake.

Meanwhile under the sea, King Triton discovers that Ariel went to the surface and in his tough love destroys much of Ariel’s possessions in her grotto reducing her to tears. After he leaves, Ariel is summoned by the Sea Witch, Ursula, played by Melissa McCarthy. Ursula is King Triton’s sister who’s been banished for…well, no reason is given, but she’s been known to cause trouble between humans and merfolk.

Ever since then, she’s been trying to find a way to get back at her brother and Ariel’s emotional state at the moment is ripe for the picking! She offers Ariel a deal: she will transform Ariel into a human for three days so she can go explore the human world as well as see Prince Eric. She must receive true love’s kiss before then else she will turn back into a mermaid. The catch though is that she must give up her voice to Ursula. This is all explained in the classic Poor Unfortunate Souls segment.

Ariel falls for Ursula’s words and accepts the deal. She’s transformed into a human and Sebastian and Flounder (who have followed her to Ursula’s lair) quickly get her to the surface so she can breathe. Unbeknownst to them, Ursula added another clause to the contract that makes Ariel forget that she even needs to be kissed in the first place, a clause that didn’t exist in the original film.

Ariel is found by a fisherman who assumes she’s the victim of a recent shipwreck. He takes her to the palace so that they can decide what should be done with her. Ariel gets a new song, For the First Time, in which she expresses (well, in her head, since she can’t speak) her amazement at the human world around her as well as her experience being human.

At the palace, she’s seen by Prince Eric who was hoping that this was the girl who saved him, but figures that it can’t be since she can’t speak. Nevertheless, the two spend a lot of time together and he even takes her around the Caribbean island the next day to see the sights and the locals.

Later that night, they reach a lagoon and Sebastian (who’s been following Ariel) wants to hurry things along to get the two to kiss. So along with Flounder and the birdbrained gannet, Scuttle (who’s also a friend of Ariel’s), voiced by Awkwafina, sing Kiss the Girl to get the two to kiss. While the original film doesn’t explain why Prince Eric can’t hear the animals singing, in this film they explain it by saying the animals’ singing is disguised with the sounds of nature or something like that.

Also in the original film, Prince Eric guesses Ariel’s name after Sebastian whispers it to him (and he doesn’t realize). In this film, Ariel gets Prince Eric to guess her name by pointing to the Aries constellation and stopping his mouth from saying the last “s”.

The kiss is foiled by Ursula’s pet eels, Flotsam and Jetsam, though. But Ursula is scared that they came so close to kissing, so she decides to take matters in her own hands tentacles to make sure it doesn’t happen. She disguises herself as a young, beautiful woman, Vanessa, played by Jessica Alexander, with the voice of Ariel. One night, Prince Eric hears Vanessa “singing” on the shore and realizes it’s the same voice as the girl who saved him.

The next morning, Scuttle flies into Ariel’s room at the palace and starts rapping one of the new songs, The Scuttlebutt, where she mentions that the local gossip is that Prince Eric is getting engaged to someone. They all assume that it’s Ariel, but soon discover that it’s Vanessa.

Ariel is distraught, but it’s not long before Scuttle discovers that Vanessa is actually Ursula in disguise. Ariel then goes to the palace and fights with Vanessa in front of everybody and breaks Vanessa’s necklace. This releases Ariel’s voice and restores it back in Ariel’s body. Everyone discovers that Ariel can actually speak now, but then she transforms back into a mermaid while Vanessa transforms back into Ursula. She captures Ariel and jumps back into the sea with her while Prince Eric follows them.

Ursula gets King Triton to give up his trident of power to save Ariel and Ursula becomes a mighty Sea Queen.

Ariel manages to impale Ursula with a ship though ending her brief reign of terror. King Triton gets his trident back and is reunited with his daughter. Prince Eric is back on land, but his mother tells him how his and Ariel’s worlds were never meant to be together.

Nah, of course it doesn’t end like that! King Triton sees that Ariel is missing her life as a human and longing for Prince Eric, so he makes her human permanently. She returns to the palace and reunites with Prince Eric. It’s implied that the two get married and are soon off on a honeymoon with subjects of both their kingdoms bidding them farewell.

And that was The Little Mermaid! It honestly wasn’t as bad as I thought it would have been, but I did have issues with it. Melissa McCarthy was by far the best thing in this film! It’s almost as if she was meant to play Ursula! Jonah Hauer-King and Jacob Tremblay also weren’t bad. I also thought that Halle Bailey did a good job, but I think she was better at facial expressions than line deliveries. Javier Bardem’s performance felt surprisingly weak. Awkwafina was Awkwafina. And Daveed Diggs’ Jamaican accent fluctuated from making me feel right at home (as I am Caribbean/West Indian) to making me realize that it’s somebody trying to do a Caribbean accent.

I was glad that Alan Menken returned to do the music for this remake and compose new songs with Lin-Manuel Miranda; I think Howard Ashman would have been pleased. I enjoyed all the new songs with the exception of The Scuttlebutt as I felt that just came out of nowhere and felt so out of place! The original songs were performed well although they all seemed to just start without any pause or transition from the dialogue. I’m not sure why they were done that way. Also certain lyrics were changed in Kiss the Girl, certain lyrics were omitted in Poor Unfortunate Souls, and the scene in Under the Sea where Sebastian mentions a bunch of fish in one go doesn’t actually cut to any of those fish! I thought these changes all stood out like a sore thumb.

The CG was very disappointing because a lot of it looked either fake or extremely creepy!

And I didn’t get why certain plot points were changed such as the clause that Ariel would forget that she needs to be kissed or that Prince Eric was adopted. There’s nothing wrong about them, but I didn’t feel they were necessary.

In the end though, I don’t think this was the best film under the sea, but there’s definitely worse ones!

So, my final score for this film is 27/35 = 77.14% (C+) !

The next review will be posted on October 3, 2023.