The 1989 release of “The Little Mermaid” marked the start of Disney’s animation renaissance, so a live-action version of the character has enormous shoes to fill. The extravagant musical bears up well under the weight of those expectations, keeping the original’s core while modernizing undernourished portions of it and riding a warm, difficult-to-resist wave of nostalgia, in large part due to actress Halle Bailey.
Older children might be weary by the idea of diving under the water once more, but parents and smaller children should enjoy the studio’s most recent effort to fully use all of its intellectual property. While this has led to a variety of live-action adaptations, “The Little Mermaid” fortunately leans more in the direction of “Beauty and the Beast” than, say, “Dumbo” or the “Snow White” family.
At first glance, moviegoers would be perplexed as to why this retelling would add about 50 minutes to the runtime of the animated smash, as they are likely to recall its vibrant tunes rather than its love-at-first-sight narrative.
Director Rob Marshall (whose musical credits include “Chicago” and “Into the Woods”) responds to that by developing not only Bailey’s Ariel but also the subject of her affection, Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King), who receives a new ballad and more backstory. He does this in collaboration with writer David Magee and producer/Broadway standout Lin-Manuel Miranda, who has contributed new lyrics to augment Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s classics.
When the film was first revealed, it was hard to understand the irrational outrage from the seediest corners of social media and the prejudice displayed by trolls in response to Bailey’s casting.
She brilliantly sings songs like “Part of Your World,” embodies the character with wide-eyed wonder, and shows that the producers made the right choices all around. This goes for Melissa McCarthy, who plays the villainous Ursula, who uses Ariel’s longing to fuel her desire for power, and Javier Bardem, who somehow pulls off wearing a crown and trident while playing King Triton.
Marshall immediately inundates the spectator with “Aqua man“-style images, capturing both the splendor of the underwater world and Ariel’s dissatisfaction. When she eventually begins to sing, the popularity of the theme song “Part of Your World” makes the performance feel practically participatory and causes audience members to applaud wildly as if this were a real musical.
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The soundtrack has undergone several changes, including the addition of a rap song for the forgetful bird Scuttle (Awkwafina), bringing “Kiss the Girl” into the twenty-first century, and getting rid of the song about cooking poor Sebastian (Daveed Diggs), whose part is otherwise unaffected. (Though nitpicking with this type of endeavor is unavoidable, worrying in advance about how the marine animals look turns out to be much ado about nothing.)
But “The Little Mermaid’s” heart is still very much there. The relationship becomes more natural by allowing Ariel and Eric to spend more time together when she lands. The climactic meeting with Ursula is disappointing, but it was also one of the weakest parts of the original.
