The Walt Disney Company seemingly won’t stop until it has turned all of its classic library of traditional animation into CG animation (with a few human characters), and if we must continue this rampage through history, The Little Mermaid at least fares better in the translation than many of the studio’s previous efforts. 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.
Or perhaps those songs just seem like highlights because they can’t be compared, favorably or not, to the existing material from the 1989 animated feature, the one that kickstarted Disney as an animation powerhouse for a new generation after years in hibernation. Screenwriter David Magee knows his way around adaptations and remakes — his recent work runs the gamut from Mary Poppins Returns to Life of Pi and Lady Chatterley’s Lover — and his script does at least put the romantic leads on, you’ll pardon the expression, more equal footing.
Otherwise, this is a story you already know well, from Hans Christian Andersen via 1989 adapters John Musker and Ron Clements: Ariel (Halle Bailey, Grown-ish) is a mermaid obsessed with the surface world and the people who live there, much to the consternation of her father King Triton (Javier Bardem), who loathes air-breathing humanity and blames them for the death of his wife. Ariel is besotted with Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King, Postcards From London); like Ariel, he too wants to achieve détente with the people beneath the sea, only to be blocked by his own royal family, namely his mother, Queen Selena (Noma Dumezweni, The Kid Who Would Be King).
Taking advantage of Ariel’s desire to experience the world above, sorceress Ursula (Melissa McCarthy) — banished sister of Triton — gives her the opportunity to grow legs and breathe oxygen, but at a price: She must surrender her siren song (which she previously used to save a drowning Eric) to Ursula. Also, Eric must bestow true love’s kiss upon her within three days, or Ariel will be enslaved forever to Ursula. And from there, we’re off to the races.
Director Rob Marshall doesn’t reach the heights of his Chicago nor does he plummet to the muddled depths of Nine; his Little Mermaid is in the company of his 2014 take on Into the Woods, where the strength of the source material is the salvation of the adaptation. “Under the Sea” — a song born to be a show-stopper from the moment lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken created it — is a highlight here, with photorealistic denizens of the deep flashing and dazzling, aided by choreographic input credited to the Alvin Ailey Dance Company.
On the other hand, “Kiss the Girl” — handled by Daveed Diggs (voicing Sebastian the crab), Awkwafina (Scuttle the seagull), and Jacob Tremblay (Flounder the… you get it) — gets a restaging that’s more doggedly harnessed to the original, an issue that permeates much of this movie. Whether it was pressure from Disney higher-ups to create a new Little Mermaid with as few variations as possible, or merely Marshall playing it safe by giving audiences what they already know, most of the leaden moments of the film’s 140-minute running time (practically a full hour longer than the original) involve re-creating something we’ve already seen, only with 21st century technology.
That unwillingness to try new things, sadly, extends to McCarthy: given free rein to tackle this deliciously over-the-top villain with the brilliant madness that originally made her famous, she’d have been more than capable of crafting a new Ursula for the ages. Instead, McCarthy is restrained, perhaps against her will, recreating Pat Carroll’s 1989 performance (down to specific nasal vowel pronunciations), rendering it an uncomfortable cover version.
Bailey and Hauer-King get a bit more opportunity to carve out something for themselves; Bailey has an ingenue’s wide-eyed expression and a belter’s larynx, and the film gives her ample opportunity to display both, while Hauer-King not only possesses the chin required to pull off that popped-collar-and-vest Disney prince look but also gives the character drive and yearning. Thanks to these two (and Magee’s script), Ariel and Eric both feel like more soulful and complex creations this time around.
It helps that this Eric gets his own song: “Wild Uncharted Waters” reflects his dissatisfaction with his proscribed royal life, another mirror to Ariel’s feelings. Ariel’s new number, “For the First Time,” gives her something to say during that chunk of the story when Ursula has taken her voice away, and it allows the character to express her feelings about Eric beyond a mere at-a-distance crush. The other addition, “The Scuttlebutt,” marries Miranda’s agility with hip-hop-based rhymes to his love of Sondheim-ian mouthfuls (musical theater fans will instantly associate its speed-lyrics with “Getting Married Today” from Company or the Witch’s Entrance in Into the Woods).
Cinematographer Dion Beebe (Gemini Man) serves up an undersea kingdom that’s far more appealing than Namor’s sludgy realm in the recent Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and costume legend Colleen Atwood’s dazzling designs for the mermaids could easily translate into color trends for the next several seasons’ worth of swimwear.
Ultimately, though, there’s a narrative-mirroring trap in which The Little Mermaid finds itself, a conflict between IP cash-in and a desire to break free, its sparks of original life dampened by the demands of corporate sameness.
Director: Rob Marshall
Screenwriter: David Magee
Cast: Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King, Daveed Diggs, Awkwafina, Jacob Tremblay, Noma Dumezweni, Art Malik, Javier Bardem, Melissa McCarthy
Producers: Marc Platt, Lin-Manuel Miranda, John DeLuca, Rob Marshall
Executive producer: Jeffrey Silver
Cinematography: Dion Beebe
Production design: John Myhre
Costume design: Colleen Atwood
Editing: Wyatt Smith
Music: Alan Menken
Lyrics: Howard Ashman, Lin-Manuel Miranda
Sound: Renee Tondelli, sound supervisor; Lee Salevan, sound designer
Production companies: Walt Disney Pictures
In English
135 minutes
