The Little Mermaid (2023)

Score: 4 / 5

Rob Marshall is back in a big way! Every three or four years he returns with another major movie, and I would rank every single one on a list of my favorites. Even his work on Broadway and in television films are all utterly fabulous. And, being the slut for Disney that I am, I especially appreciate his directorial work for the studio starting with my favorite Pirates of the Caribbean film in 2011, followed by Into the Woods and Mary Poppins Returns. He combines wildly disparate energies in his films, from eye-popping spectacle to brooding woe and from bright camp to dark stylized chamber work. His dexterity extends, too, to his use of CGI, which really should set the standard for Disney in that it's often present but rarely overwhelming. Of course, a project like The Little Mermaid does, by necessity, require bounteous effects, but thankfully he reins it in in favor of character and atmosphere every time.

Which is exactly what these live-action remakes should do: either give us what we love in an updated or better way (think Beauty and the Beast and Dumbo), or recreate a middling work to become something we love (looking at you, Pete's Dragon and 101 Dalmatians). The Little Mermaid does indeed fit the bill for the former, basically retreading the original with a few interesting updates, not all of which worked for me but most of which did exceedingly well. Its aesthetic choices, story updates, and casting will be the focus of my thoughts here; if you don't know the story by now, I can't help you.

To start: the cast. Much will be made of this, so I'll be brief in my reflections. Halle Bailey is a magnificent Ariel, bringing no small amount of intelligence and likability to the rebellious-to-a-fault character; she finds ways of strengthening the music and her own character that are much needed. Javier Bardem is fine as King Triton, masterfully bridging tenderness with control. Jonah Hauer-King plays a wonderfully more rounded Prince Eric, whose arc parallels Ariel's own and makes their romance infinitely more believable, thanks in no small part to the inclusion of his mother as a character, the queen who fears the sea and its ill fate, played brilliantly by Noma Dumezweni. He even gets his own song and has a nice voice, though the scene is directed to be more like a mix of Zac Efron in High School Musical and a Michael Bolton music video. And, of course, we have Melissa McCarthy as our fabulous sea witch, who camps up the role even more than Pat Carroll and her animators did, turning an insane parody of Divine into a modern drag queen who looks and sounds like she's been chainsmoking in piano lounges for decades in the same glittering black bodice. Like McCarthy's humor or not, she completely blew me out of the water in this film -- as she did in Can You Ever Forgive Me? -- and she'll do the same to you. For you. Either way.

To continue: aesthetics and animation. Perhaps most surprisingly and successfully, to my eye, is Marshall's choice to stick to the energy and atmosphere of the original while making the non-human/merpeople characters photorealistic. It follows the pioneering efforts of Jon Favreau's The Jungle Book and The Lion King for sure in that way, which I personally really love. I've never really been a huge fan of the animal-centric cartoons, and so turning the animals into something you might see on a nature documentary who also happen to talk and sing is definitely my sweet spot. So numbers like "Under the Sea" and "Kiss the Girl" are here no less visually glorious, but they are pared down a bit in terms of voices (there is no chorus of singing fish whatsoever) and choreography (no awkward cartoonish crustacean band, but rather schools of fish simply showing off their synchronized swimming). At it helps to have Marshall, who himself led the charge with more "realistic" mermaids in PotC: On Stranger Tides, leading this charge again, effectively bringing his bona fides to an undersea realm that rivals that of James Cameron's Avatar: The Way of Water. 

What about the animated characters? Daveed Diggs is the standout by far, imbuing his Sebastian with gobsmackingly clever humor in ways I certainly didn't predict. Visually, he's also the most interesting animated character, despite his animators having little but eyes and claws to work with. I did not, however, like that they changed his role from concert master (who therefore knows Ariel very well and naturally treats her like a naughty student) to Triton's majordomo, which makes him a redundant Zazu to Bardem's Mufasa. Jacob Tremblay swims in for a couple scenes as Flounder, who is even more annoying and laughably inconsequential than his cartoon counterpart; the film may as well have cut his character. Awkwafina brings her signature voice and wit to Scuttle, who is changed to be a diving seabird, which is kind of cute when it allows her to speak to her friends underwater. Her performance is excellent and a welcome update from Buddy Hackett's iconic vocal take in the original; unfortunately, she is given an unforgivably obnoxious rap song by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who should just stop for a while until he finds something actually interesting to do.

To conclude: updates to the story. Here, Triton's aquatic kingdom does not appear vast or rich or even populated; without the concert at the beginning, the only merpeople we ever see are Triton, his daughters, and one who may be his sentinel or guard. We have no sense of scope or stakes, so his melancholy brooding later makes little sense, as does his conflict with Ursula for rule of the ocean. However, it is an unmistakably beautifully rendered Caribbean paradise that I'd be happy to revisit soon. The relationship between Ariel and Eric is magnificently organic, and includes her exploring his treasure trove of ocean artifacts as well as getting the marketplace to dance like Giselle in Enchanted. It was interesting -- neither good nor bad -- to have Ariel sing in voiceover during her time on land, though her new song could have used some more workshopping. Ariel also gets some key moments of agency, climaxing when she herself pilots the deadly galleon into her villain's torso. So, despite a few odd choices and arguable missteps, The Little Mermaid more than earns its place among the great live-action Disney remakes even as it helps shine a light on where the studio can go from here.