By the time The Little Mermaid hit theaters in 1989, Disney was so desperately in need of a hit animation movie. Oliver & Company the year before had made some money but the reviews were mixed. The bigger hit had been Who Framed Roger Rabbit. But the House of Mouse was still struggling following the failure of The Black Claudron in 1985 which had attempted to adapt Lloyd Alexander’s fantasy novels, but crammed the plots of both Cauldron and The Book of Three in one movie. And it still suffered from the looks of being Disney-fied despite the PG rating when it should’ve looked something similar to what Ralph Bakshi had done with The Lord of the Rings, Wizards and Fire and Ice.
Animation was changing in the last 20 years with the invention of the ratings system. Bakshi was making more mature-themed animated movies while Don Bluth had left Disney a decade before taking a lot of animators with him to make classic hits like The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail and The Land Before Time. Disney’s output of movies in the 1970s hadn’t been that remarkable either.
For the most part, Disney was branching out in the 1980s producing more live-action movies that contained profanity, violence, sex/nudity and even rated R. The Disney Channel had emerged with the expansion of cable TV and the home video market was exploding so people weren’t going to pay to see movies in theaters when they could get it at home for a cheaper price. It’s very likely, Disney’s animated movies could become a thing of the past. The Fox and the Hound and The Great Mouse Detective are good movies but they lack the charm Uncle Walt brought to them.
But then, Disney did the smart thing by hiring Howard Ashman and Alan Menken to work on Oliver, which was a version of Oliver Twist. And now, they were working on an adaptation of the Hans Christian Anderson tale. They had done the musical Little Shop of Horrors and Ashman had worked on Oliver the previous year. But they had some gold with Mermaid, which Ashman produced as well as wrote the lyrics to the song with Menken scoring the music. There was a lot energy and excitement in the movie.
Also, the movie seemed to cater to both adults and children, boys and girls in way that it became a huge blockbuster for the studio and re-ignite another golden age in not only Disney’s animation but Hollywood animated features. The Broadway-style musical numbers would continue through the 1990s in several Disney movies, even after Ashman’s death from AIDS-complication in 1991.
But you can blame another Disney fairy tale story for the recent live-action remakes of Disney cartoons. In 2015, Disney did a live-action remake of Cinderella. The story had been told before in live-action with the modest hit Ever After, but Lily James as the titular character and Kenneth Branagh’s direction brought some lively charm and magic to the movie which was a huge hit in the spring of 2015. Unfortunately, if one movie is a hit, executives at Disney guessed all remakes could be hits.
Movies like Aladdin, The Lion King and even Beauty and the Beast (which had all been iconic movies of the golden era) all were remade even though they weren’t as good. And Dumbo seemed to be more about Colin Farrell’s character than the titular flying elephant. So, when it was announced The Little Mermaid was to be remade, some people groaned. But even after production began, there was controversy over the casting of Halle Berry as Ariel, because she’s black and well, people are racists.
It’s a shame Berry has to spend half the movie not speaking or singing, because she does have a great voice and her delivery of dialogue brings the character just as alive in the 1989 cartoon. But yet, when she isn’t speaking, it seems she doesn’t have the same way of being animated as the cartoon version did. Her whole way of acting when she’s not talking or singing is reacting.
The plot is the same as the original. Ariel is fascinated with the human world but her father, King Triton (Javier Bardem in an awful performance) forbids it. She swims up to the surface to see the fireworks but when a storm forces a ship to crash, Ariel saves the life of Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King). But this angers Triton who forbids her from ever going to the surface again and destroys all the human objects she has collected.
Ariel finds herself being led by moray eels to the sea witch Ursula (Melissa McCarthy, having a ball playing a baddie for a change) who offers to turn her into a human for three days so she get her true love’s kiss. But she has to give up her voice. If Ariel fails, she will revert back to a mermaid and Ursula will own her forever. So, you know what happens next.
If you’ve seen the 1989 cartoon, you know exactly what happens. She meets Eric with the help of animal friends and there’s an instant attraction. But the problem is what works best as a cartoon doesn’t always work best as a live-action movie. Flounder (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) doesn’t adapt well. I agree with the popular meme that Flounder looks like a drug addict compared to the animated version.
Sebastian the Crab looks ok and Daveed Diggs does what he can with the Jamaican accent but some of the energy that was in the cartoon is gone. The rendition of “Under the Sea” which won an Oscar doesn’t have the fun spirit the late Samuel E. Wright brought to it. Sebastian, himself, seems more like a crab version of Zazu under Diggs.
And that leaves Scuttle, a seagull that is a friend of Ariel, but in a twisted scene is introduced dive-bombing a fish to eat and missing Flounder. I guess they believe in the Circle of Life too under the sea. Scuttle is voiced by Awkwafina because the cartoon was voiced by Buddy Hackett and I guess Disney though someone with a distinctive voice should voice Scuttle. Awkwafina’s voice gets annoying real quick and lacks the adorable goofiness Hackett brought to the role. Awkwafina isn’t a bad actress. I liked her in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings because they toned down her outrageousness she brought to Crazy Rich Asians.
Also at two hours and 15 minutes with credits, it present another problem with the live-action movies. They are way too long but tell exactly the same story as the original. The 1989 was under an hour and a half. Also, Hauer-King doesn’t bring much to the role of Prince Eric. You get the sense they’re only together for the convenience of the movie. What sucks is the movie loses its charm once the scenes go from the underwaters of Atlantica. You wonder what Ariel could see in the dullness of the world where Eric lives.
It’s a shame because all the flack Berry took from on-line trolls and social media posts was unwarranted. She gives a good performance most of the movie. But it seems once she’s on land, director Rob Marshall told her to do as little as possible. Regardless, this is a career-changing role. It’s just a waste she didn’t have more of a golden opportunity.
What do you think. Please comment.
Zane Says 