REVIEW - The Little Mermaid

    There's been a mermaid on the horizon ever since it became clear sometime in the last decade that Disney did intend to give all of their signature titles the live-action treatment--we've had a long time to prepare for this. (For reference, this July will mark four years since Halle Bailey's casting as Ariel made headlines.) 

    Arguing whether this or any of the live-action remakes "live up" to their animated predecessor is always going to be a losing battle. Even ignoring the nostalgic element, it's impossible for them to earn the same degree of admiration because the terrain in which these animated films rose to legend has long eroded. This is especially the case for The Little Mermaid. Where this remake is riding off a years long commercial high for the Walt Disney Company, the Disney that made The Little Mermaid in 1989 was twenty years past its cultural goodwill. Putting out an animated fairy-tale musical was not a sure thing, yet its success sent ripples through the film world that are at once impossible to miss yet consistently overlooked. 

    What, then, does this live-action rendition bring to the mythology in this age?

    The film finds some success in the visual department. Even with a landscape as lush as the ocean reef, the photorealistic visuals can't quite match the majestic tapestry of hand-drawn animation, but (even as I was questioning the honesty of some of the sea life flailing their fins the way that they do) I won't deny that the choreography of something like the "Under the Sea" number made me glad I invested in a 3d ticket. 

    Roughly half of the spoken lines from this film are carried from the animated film. In a way this adaptation almost can't help but default to the manufacture settings set by 1989 film. The animated text is already close to perfection, but as a consequence of its fidelity, any narrative addition or modification is going to be instantly noticed, and not all of these changes ultimately strengthen the text. 

    There is a case to be made for Ariel herself taking out the villain in her own story, but their approach with this climax was just to have Ariel and Eric swap places, and the result doesn't feel entirely organic or even satisfying. It checks off a box without really granting Ariel a victory that is suited for her specifically. If anything, it betrays a sort of lack of confidence in what Ariel as a character brought to her story. 

    There's little added here that hadn't already been inferred by longtime lovers of the animated film, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe it's not revelatory to propose that Eric is on the sea so much because he's got some wanderlust, and we all kinda guessed that the humans killed Ariel's mother. Just so, there is something validating about seeing the magic carry across an expanded runtime. If anything, it shows good judgment on this creative team that most of these changes feel like they were already there, like canonized subtext.

    Much of what can be considered truly new comes from the fresh performances of this cast, in which there isn't really a weak link. Halle Bailey walks and swims with equal grace, a wide-eyed beholder of the fantastical landscape she is privy to, save for the moments when she herself becomes yet another ornament in the film's otherworldly storybook. Her energy is matched by the earnest and endearing Jonah Hauer-King as the courageous Prince Eric. And while we're waiting for Disney animation to give Disney villains another try, audiences have found a holdover in Melissa McCarthy, who graciously chooses to play Ursula as a villain with a sense of humor and not a comical villain. 

    Thus far, I've talked about "source material" in relation to the 1989 animated film directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, but of course the story goes way beyond that. Disney inherited this tale from the imaginative pen of Hans Christian Andersen. This connection is referenced within the text of the remake with an overtness that is maybe unprecedented in this train of remakes (you'll see). But it's not just the tip of the hat that nearly brought tears to this critic's eyes. It was the depth afforded to understanding why the story of a mermaid who pined to walk on the shoreline would inspire such elemental feelings across the centuries, and how this emotional pulse has carried through the legendary animated film. There is, after all, a special kind of heartbreak reserved for anyone who reaches for the light even as the world tells them to keep their head underwater. But there is also a special kind of reverie, even triumph, for those who dare to walk on their own two feet just the same. 

    Thanks for reminding us. 

        --The Professor