Disney live-action remakes. You either love the adaptation of your childhood classics into live action, or you detest the lack of originality from a studio once known for completely changing the movie game. For me, I kind of lean towards the latter, as up until this point I’ve pretty much avoided the other remakes after The Jungle Book. I just don’t really see a point in taking animated classics and giving them a twice-as-long, often inferior looking remake. This idea that a film can be elevated by making it live action is a bit disheartening coming from one of the biggest animation studios in the world, especially since other filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro have done so much to bring respect back to the medium. 

Regardless, here we are talking about The Little Mermaid, a Disney film that played a pretty prominent role in my childhood. It was actually the first film I can remember seeing in theaters, and it’s still so iconic that I still remember a ton about why the film is regarded as a classic. The fun songs, beautiful animation, an iconic villain, and I guess a few subliminal sexual messages all worked to make this a true animation icon. Why they would ever try to one-up it and “improve” it is beyond me, but 2023’s The Little Mermaid certainly tries. And I’ll give it props; it does try to do more with the story this time around, giving its main characters more depth and desires that I do see as an improvement over the original. But beyond that I can’t really say it succeeds over the original, with so-so special effects, stunted performances, questionable design choices, and a bloated runtime making me believe not everything is better under the sea.

The story is still fundamentally the same, with a young mermaid named Ariel longing to join humans on land while her domineering father, King Triton, forbids it. When Ariel becomes enamored with a human prince named Eric, Ariel turns to making a deal with a sea witch named Ursula to make her dreams a reality. But like most deals with witches, there’s always a catch. 

So look, there was a ton of discourse around this movie before release, especially around the casting of Hallie Bailey as Ariel. A lot of the comments about her were unwarranted and for what it’s worth, she does an okay job here. Her singing ability cannot be denied, and I would argue that she pulls off some of the iconic songs like Part of Your World better than we’ve ever heard before. I think she also does an admirable job capturing the wonder and curiosity of the character, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find her performance a bit reigned in most of the time. And this may not exactly be Bailey’s fault, because a lot of the other performances seem to suffer from lack of direction. Javier Bardem’s Triton feels kind of aimless at times, while Melissa McCarthy’s Ursula never really reaches the same bombastic evil of her predecessor. These are good actors that just feel mishandled at the end of the day, though I will say the voice cast does manage to rise above. Daveed Diggs’s Sebastian, Jacob Tremblay’s Flounder and Akwafina’s Scuttle all do decent jobs at bringing life to their occasionally life-less looking characters. The decision to make these animal characters more realistic kind of robs them of their ability to properly emote, which can really undercut some scenes like Sebastian’s Under the Sea song.

The music is luckily one of the stronger aspects of the film, as classic tunes are revitalized while remaining both contemporary and faithful. The aforementioned Part of Your World and Under the Sea are the standouts, while classics like Kiss the Girl and Poor Unfortunate Soul earn their flowers as well. There’s a few new songs thrown in here too, but they feel kind of out of place, almost like they’re directly clashing with the original soundtrack that felt more timeless. The Scuttle and Sebastian rap just feels out of place. Wonder who could be behind that. Visuals have been one of the biggest complaints aimed at nearly all of Disney’s recent films, from poor lighting to unconvincing computer generated objects and backgrounds. When we’re above water I actually think the film looks pretty good, with a vibrant amount of colors and nicely designed sets that capture a lively caribbean kingdom aesthetic. But contrary to the song, under the sea isn’t always better, as the visuals can be incredibly mixed at times, with human faces obviously grafted onto CGI bodies and environments that elicit no real sense of weight or space. It’s not all terrible, as the underwater effects for the human actors are pretty convincing, and there’s enough color to make up for a bit of a lack in variety when it comes to the undersea kingdom.

The original film has a streamlined if not simple story that I think is given some legs…in this remake, giving Ariel and even her human crush Eric more to their characters which allows them to feel more three dimensional. You actually get to see more of their relationship develop and blossom, even if it does still involve wooing a literal fish out of water who can’t speak. While this is nice, the film does feel needlessly stretched to include new songs and small moments that don’t always feel vital. A good chunk of this could have been whittled down, as I think the 500 scenes of Sebastian going “Where is Ariel?” get very repetitive after a while, but as I said, there are some positives to having a longer story.

My biggest takeaway from any remake is whether or not it has a genuinely good reason to exist. The Little Mermaid 2023 tows that line, adding a bit to make it unique from the original, but ultimately can’t help but fall back on attempting to replicate what made the animated film so great. There’s some elements here that I think will stand the test of time, like the re-recordings of the classic songs, but I can acknowledge that this movie isn’t really for me. Disney doesn’t seem to be slowing down on their live action remakes, and I can’t really say this gives me any real desire to see the future releases. Especially if they become more blatant vanity projects like the live action Moana remake. You aren’t fooling us Dwayne. Black Adam sucked and now you want to regain your credibility? For shame.

Rating

Poor Unfortunate Soul

The Poor Unfortunate Soul is a riff on a pre-existing cocktail named the Suffering Bastard, a cocktail designed in World War II hangovers for the troops to alleviate their hangovers with. This is essentially the PG-rated version, but still contains all of that rated R alcohol. I decided to design the cocktail around the undersea dealer of devilish deals, Ursula the Sea Witch. We’ll be making the cocktail purple thanks to some hibiscus ginger beer, while also adding a hint of chocolate to pair alongside some minor tropical flavors. If you choose to make this cocktail, then come along with me. No need to turn over your voice. Unless your name is Brendan Urie.

Ingredients

• 2oz white rum
• 1oz creme de violette
• 1/2oz creme de cacao
• 3/4oz lime juice
• Splash: blue curacao
• Top: Hibiscus ginger beer
• Rim: Sugar

Instructions

1. Take a cocktail glass, rim it with a lime wedge, and coat the rim in sugar.
2. Add ingredients to the shaker and shake with ice.
3. Strain into prepared glass.
4. Top with hibiscus ginger beer
5. Add small amounts of blue curacao for color.