The Little Mermaid
Director: Rob Marshall
Writer: David Magee
Based on: Hans Christian Andersen‘s fairy tale
Remake of: the 1989 animated movie
Cast: Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King, Melissa McCarthy, Javier Bardem, Noma Dumezweni, Art Malik, Daveed Diggs, Jacob Tremblay, Awkwafina, Jessica Alexander, Martina Laird, Emily Coates, Christopher Fairbank, John Dagleish
Seen on: 31.5.2023

Content Note: racism, child abuse

Plot:
Ariel (Halle Bailey) is a mermaid dreaming of humans and their culture. She would love to explore the land, but her father King Triton (Javier Bardem) is strictly against it – he sees humanity as more of a threat than anything else. But his warnings and prohibitions are not heard. When Ariel sees Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) on a ship and rescues him from drowning, she is more set than ever to go on land to see him again. So, she goes to her aunt, the sea witch Ursula (Melissa McCarthy), and makes a bargain with her. But Ursula wants to make sure that Ariel can’t keep her end of it.

The animated Little Mermaid was one of the movies of my childhood and with the racist outrage due to Bailey’s casting, I knew I had to see this version of it, even though the money-grabbing remakes are not exactly what I would hope for from a big studio like Disney. And while I still don’t think the remake was strictly necessary and I would have rather seen something new, it wasn’t bad. The 3D was bad, though.

This version of The Little Mermaid sticks overall rather closely to the original film, though there are a few changes. The most obvious one might be the actual inclusion of people of color and setting the entire thing in the Caribbean. While I generally applaud any kind of effort to make films more diverse, this particular choice struck me as a little weird because they still had a white Eric. Whether one needs to bring in the fraught history of slavery and colonialism into this fantasy story is up for discussion, but I felt that it becomes more urgent to make some kind of comment on it with a white prince (who was adopted into a Black royal family). Especially given that this Ariel is Black.

There are a few more changes, probably less controversial than this one, though. There are a few new songs, written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Your mileage will vary on that. Personally, with the exception of Moana, his songs don’t really work for me and that’s also true here, though they were okay enough apart from Scuttle’s (Awkwafina) rap that really rubbed me the wrong way and I can’t even tell you why (maybe because of Awkwafina’s history of profiting off Black culture). That Eric gets his own song is fine, but honestly, I was perfectly happy with Eric’s songless existence so far. Especially since Hauer-King’s performance is so bland, I didn’t feel like giving Eric a song gave him more of a personality.

Fortunatley, Bailey is there to bring charm and charisma enough for both Ariel and Eric. She is wonderful, and has exactly the right tough for the role to underscore Ariel’s emotionality and rebellious self-sufficience even as she goes chasing after a guy. I though Bardem’s Triton was also really excellent, almost making his abusive behavior towards Ariel (like destroying all of her treasures) understandable (not excuseable) in his worry for her. McCarthy’s Ursula couldn’t quite reach the heights of the original for me, but it wasn’t bad.

So, for the most part I had a good time with this version of the film, even though I still prefer the original (which might be nostalgia talking, I can’t say). But I can only recommend that if you go see it at all, you don’t go see it in 3D. There’s this wonderfully colorful tropical world under the sea – and the 3D turns into just a grayish soup, dulling all color and taking most of the fun out of it.

Summarizing: unnecessary but fine.