The Little Mermaid Review - Disney's Live-Action Remake Has Everything But Lacks The Most Important Thing — Charm

Rob Marshall brings the live-action adaptation of Disney's popular animated fantasy, The Little Mermaid, with Halle Bailey. I wasn't quite sure that Disney couldn't have found a better name than Marshall for a live-action version of Ariel's Oceanic love story—but alas... I wish I was right. Even I had certain expectations from the filmmaker—especially when you know what story he has to offer. The Little Mermaid has everything done right—from redeveloping every single character to dialogue and music—but has gone wrong with one thing – the Charm! And it hurts, man. How can one look at this Ariel, an almond-skinned girl, after having seen the super gorgeous and milky-white Ariel in the animated drama? Where is the charm? Where is that attractive face you were looking for? Maybe they shouldn't have chosen this animated flick for a remake since live-action effects are totally nonfunctional.The story, as we all know, follows a mermaid named Ariel (Halle Bailey), who is the youngest daughter of Atlantica's ruler, King Triton (Javier Bardem). She is popular in the ocean for her melodious voice and loves singing. She is curious about the human world and wants to know more by visiting the surface. Her fascination is forbidden by her father, Triton—not just her, but all the mermaids. During her secret visit to the surface, she saves Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) from a shipwreck and falls in love with him. Ariel becomes determined to be with him in the world above water. These actions lead to a confrontation with her father and an encounter with the conniving sea witch Ursula (Melissa McCarthy). Ursula, who has always been good at conning and making trades, plans to trap Ariel so that she can take over the trident of Triton. Ariel makes a deal with her to trade her beautiful voice for human legs so she can discover the world above water and impress Eric. However, this ultimately places her life (and her father’s crown) in jeopardy. Will Ariel find his love as Ursula continues with her devious plans?As far as I can see, there are no additional changes made to the script or the screenplay. However, it's a pretty long and stretched narrative. I don't see how they can think of dilating this standard 90-minute trip to 135 minutes when there's nothing more to explore except the physical properties on the surface and under water. The Little Mermaid is a sweet little story, so keep it sweet and little. Why drag it out unnecessarily? The first half literally puts you to sleep. Then, we have an engaging second half with some action, explosions, and high VFX frames. Things have been pretty interesting and watchable in the last 30 minutes, so yes, I can say that the mermaid survives on the shore. The comedy doesn't work as the dialogues arr copied from the 80s flick, which is indeed outdated now. From "You are just the crab to do it," to "How much I'm gonna miss my daughter," the sentences are not quite right. Or is it the impact of the original flick? I'm afraid so.One thing you can excel at with live-action remakes is the acting, as you get real actors in front of the camera. The Little Mermaid surpasses the original one there, because the animation is highly dependent on computer generated expressions, while live-action remakes can bring a real human feel. Halle Bailey is a dull princess, if I have to judge by her looks. But yes, her performance is pretty good. Jonah Hauer-King's Eric isn't as handsome as the animated Eric, but he certainly gave better expressions. King Triton looked like a real handsome king in the 1989 flick, but here Javier Bardem wasn't that pretty. The get-up, the costume—it just didn't fit right. Ursula was best portrayed in the animation frames because the structure was wild, crazy, and obscenely beautiful. Here, you can't expect Melissa McCarthy to do so. There is something terribly wrong with the visualisation of The Little Mermaid's world, but I can't blame anyone for that as the feature film formats aren't comparable. Melissa still did a decent job. Noma Dumezweni, Jacob Tremblay (voice), Awkwafina (voice), Daveed Diggs (voice), Jessica Alexander (even more gorgeous than Ariel), John Dagleish, and Martina Laird are okayish.The Little Mermaid is uplifted by its VFX team, which had the challenge of creating two different worlds completely opposite each other. Nothing can ever match the pleasure of watching the dark blue ocean in the animation world. This mild blue water is no match for it, by far. Like I said, the animation world was too beautiful to be matched by the real-life features, and that's the biggest fault here. Be it Ariel, Triton, Ursula, Eric, Crab, and others, you just can't feel the way you felt the original characters 4 decades ago. The cinematography and sound design contribute a bit to the overall experience, but the editing is below par. I am not a huge Rob Marshall fan, as I never understood the hype for Chicago (the humour worked, the film didn't) and Mary Poppins Returns (not even half of the original), while Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was saved by Johnny Depp's unbeatable Jack Sparrow. With The Little Mermaid, he exposed his shortcomings again, despite having a full-proof script (that wasn't the case with his other known works). So, The Little Mermaid is passably watchable only because of the visual effects, old musical numbers (one of the biggest pluses here), and the popular fantasy tale. Skip it or watch it; it deserves both. It might fit in your social media world if you don't watch films made in the past, but for (someone like) me, it's definitely not gonna be part of my world.