June 5, 2023 · Watch the official trailer
It takes a lot of time, effort, and commitment these days to make a trip to the cinema.
Theaters are further away than ever before; tickets and concessions costs have significantly risen and the rise of streaming services have made a once common weekend activity reduce to something most movie fans do once a month at best.
As a result, film studios have been forced to radically change their product development strategies in order to maintain or increase their market share.
Disney, a studio who mistakenly feels like they are immune to market trends, has doubled down on their strategy to inundate cinephiles with carbon copies, rushed sequels and unnecessary remakes of existing IP as a means to streamline their profit margins.
Putting “Chicago” director Rob Marshall at the helm of their latest project, Disney returns to its well of remaking animated classics as live action features with an update to the 1989 smash hit “The Little Mermaid.”
For a variety of misguided reasons, Marshall and Disney attempt to justify their feature by bloating the narrative with unnecessary character development, additional songs and inexplicable CGI-heavy cinematic sequences that push the tight 80-minute pace of the original to well over two hours.
This isn’t to say that there is anything exceptionally new about the updated “Mermaid.” The storyline, loosely adapted from the Hans Christian Andersen tale, remains almost entirely the same with a wide eyed mermaid named Ariel longing to experience life uh above water while her aunt Ursula plots to overthrow the throne of King Triton.
“Grown-ish” star Halle Bailey emerges as the only true positive in “Mermaid” with a heartfelt, dynamic energy to Ariel that shines brighter than the rest of the lackluster film in much the same way that Rachel Zegler energized 2021’s remake of “West Side Story.”
Marshall treats the entire film as if it were a cinematic extension of musical theater and Bailey is rewarded with dazzling individual moments, especially during the “Part of Your World” sequence.
Bailey is also very adept non-verbally and her energy keeps the segment of the film where Ariel loses her voice from being completely bland and uninteresting.
The other characters who aren’t completely computer generated bring little to nothing in terms of its excitement or enthusiasm for the material. It makes no sense why an Oscar caliber talent like Javier Bardem reduces himself to angrily floating around for the entirety of his supporting performance.
Melissa McCarthy attempts to bring the same level of villainy to Ursula as the original film, however, her performance is painfully over the top and Marshall does not accentuate the comedic aspects of her character as well as he might have.
Vocal talents like Jacob Tremblay and Daveed Diggs as Flounder and Sebastian respectively make overall sense in the context of the film, yet their CGI characters look incredibly awkward in the larger context of the movie and while Diggs has a terrific vocal moment for the signature “Under The Sea,” the animation around his performance is chaotic and disappointing.
On the whole, the visual effects and CGI work in “Mermaid” feels exceptionally shoddy given the rich, colorful source material and really adds to the overall vibe that this remake didn’t need to be produced.
There’s also the disappointing decision to artificially enhance the running time by adding several new songs to the film. Marshall languishes his way through a song for Prince Eric by keeping the camera behind Eric at all times.
Alan Menken, who composed the original soundtrack, teams with “Hamilton” and “Moana” lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda on several numbers, with a rap for Sebastian and Scuttle really feeling out of place and forced.
By in large, Bailey’s performance is the main selling point for a film that could have been more faithful to the 1989 original and likely would have had greater success artistically and commercially.
Especially given that it will live on in perpetuity on Disney+, there’s no reason for cinephiles to seek out “The Little Mermaid” in theaters.
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