The Little Mermaid

Not being the biggest musical or indeed Disney fan out there, this film was already at a disadvantage before these words landed onto this word document. But I’m glad to say there is no bias here, the live action release of The Little Mermaid is one of the most entertaining and comedic musicals I’ve witnessed in a while. Although, Flounder, Sebastian and Scuttle may be horrific too look at, the quality of voice acting soon overshadows this CGI genocide. Speaking of CGI, the cinematography of the musical is amazing, the vibrancy of the coral and the reflections of flame against the waves truly captures some beautiful moments within the film. Halle Berry is convincing as Ariel and provides a good performance however some of the musical hits hinder her performance, as industry flare and style is added to the original songs which only points towards the plastic seal disney almost always ends up leaving on screen when producing many of their latest films. This staged, ‘plastic’ sensation is also seen in the large scenes where deliberate stage direction and organisation of a large cast stands out naked on screen and further loses the magic of the film. Generally speaking the acting in this musical is at a decent standard with Halle Bailey, Melissa Mcarthy and Art malik giving some particularly great performances. Unfortunately, our two main antagonists are let down due to the script itself and also Javier Bardem’s acting. Neither antagonist was well-written or indeed had any impactful dialogue however it must be said that the score ‘Unfortunate souls’ was performed brilliantly by Mcarthy. Due to the quality of writing, the antagonists fail to bring any significant sensation of tension or threat, although this film is obviously and appropriately rated a PG, that doesn’t mean mild threat has to be absent from the script. As a result, as funny as Sebastian and Scuttle were, this served no comedic relief as there was nothing to relieve the audience from. Whilst it is undoubtedly hard to translate an alternate live-action interpretation of an animated Disney classic, there were little adjustments made throughout the film that had a direct impact on the magic of the story. For example, whilst the song ‘Under the sea’ was on of the better musical numbers of the film, both visually and in terms of audio, it was nowhere near as extravagant as the scene from its animated predecessor. The problem lies in disney’s approach to create a more ‘realistic’ presentations of these magical, surreal animated classics. Had the script included more threat, and disney used the CGI to more accurately match the showcases found in the animation, this live-action musical would’ve been a triumph. Conclusively, this film does what it sets out to do by entertaining families who are able to enjoy more Disney in the cinema and relive the classic stories from the past.