Review: King Triton (Javier Bardem) rules over the seven seas with his daughters, but one of them has other interests. Ariel has her head above water; she collects trinkets and artefacts from land-dwellers, and her curiosity often gets her in trouble. She falls in love with Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) after rescuing him when he’s thrown overboard during a storm, much to her father’s dismay. The one rule he has enforced is that the human world is forbidden to the merpeople, and, in his fury, Triton destroys Ariel’s treasured collection. The distraught mermaid makes a pact with the evil Ursula (Melissa McCarthy), who promises to give Ariel human legs in exchange for her enchanting voice to go ashore. But it comes with a dire clause – if Ariel doesn’t get true love’s kiss in three days, the sea witch will trap her forever.
Halle Bailey’s incredible singing talent is immediately apparent, and her casting makes perfect sense when you hear her rendition of the classic ‘Part of Your World’. Bailey brings the right mix of Ariel’s fish-out-of-water naivete and committed spirit to life. Her chemistry with Jonah Hauer-King’s Prince Eric is also compelling, aided by the decision to give his character more backstory. Their unlikely romance has more depth than previously seen, but it comes at the cost of pacing issues, compounded by the songs – some extended versions of the classics and some new. This weighs down the film’s narrative flow, especially in its initial couple of acts.
Another troublesome area is the use of sketchy CGI that often takes you out of the underwater experience, especially with recent films raising the bar relatively high in that department. Fortunately, supporting characters such as the cranky crab Sebastian (voiced by Daveed Diggs) and the enthusiastic seagull Scuttle (voiced by Awkwafina) infuse enough humour to let the plot swim along. Javier Bardem and Melissa McCarthy justify their respective roles as Triton and Ursula with their immense talent. However, it is hard not to see past previous favourite Flounder’s (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) jarring photorealistic design.
While Disney’s barrage of live-action remakes of their classic catalogue has had mixed results in the past, ‘The Little Mermaid’ mostly benefits from this retelling for the current generation. It doesn’t entirely capture the same magical essence of the original, but all is not lost in Rob Marshall’s interpretation, primarily due to Halle Bailey’s star-making performance.
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