Disney’s The Little Mermaid review – does the new film brave uncharted creative waters?

Unlike their animated progenitors, the hardest thing these live-action Disney films have to do is prove their worth – both artistically and financially. While the mammoth box offices of the likes of The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast have taken care of the latter, there’s no denying that these big, starry remakes have to go the extra mile to justify their existence as creations in their own right.

There are, across Rob Marshall’s 135-minute oceanic odyssey about a mermaid obsessed with being a human, a fairly decent wad of reasons that earn this latest big-screen offering its stripes. A coming-of-age parable about the dangers of temptation and the desire for the younger generation to find their feet (quite literally), the best compliment to pay the film is that it does exactly what it needs to do: deliver a captivating story that keeps the young ‘uns entertained, and acts as a vehicle for some of the most iconic numbers written for the screen.

Marshall, who cut his teeth in theatre before delivering us the likes of Chicago (yay!) and Nine (oh…), certainly knows how to plunder the depths of oceanic visual spectacle, even tapping into the themes of Hans Christian Andersen’s original fable to augment the animation’s much sparser screenplay. Scriptwriter David Magee comes up with some slightly convincing ways to sidestep some justified concerns with the initial movie’s plot (which followed the young mermaid Ariel princess who traded her voice for the chance to live amongst humans; falling in love with a floppy-haired prince Eric in the process) though beyond that there isn’t much here that will ruffle the feathers of Disney purists. 

Onto the positives, though. The first success of note is rising star leading lady Halle Bailey – expressive, playful and never left adrift amongst the various CGI backdrops she wades through. Vocally perfect (without a hint of the auto-tuning that dogged previous live-action Disney adaptations), Bailey has given the House of Mouse a charismatic, intrepid princess who is as inquisitive as she is naive. Her delivery of “Part of Your World” does every justice to arguably the best “I Want” song in history. The way Ariel susses out how to sidestep the muting curse placed on her in order to communicate with her boy crush Eric is relatively fun to watch. 

After Avatar: The Way of Water and Black Panther both offering us rich, nautical and often CGI-heavy worlds, it’s understandable that the aesthetics of The Little Mermaid don’t feel as novel as they could. That being said, there are some great moments – especially “Under the Sea” – that don’t seem too inorganic, though the same cannot sadly be said for Javier Bardem’s Triton.

The main issue with the film is that, amidst all the beautiful, vibrant technicolour of Ariel’s aquatic home, it’s hard to work out why exactly she’s so compelled to head to the surface. The relatively inane, non-descript beige of Eric’s palace is far from enthralling, and small hints towards an environmental message don’t lend much thematically to Ariel’s final decision.

It’s a shame that there is such a variety of quality in the supporting performances: Daveed Diggs is a remarkably memorable crab Sebastian, but Melissa McCarthy’s Ursula is laced with a blasé, jaded cynicism that never matches up to the scenery-chewing playful villainy of Pat Carroll in the original flick. Insufferable sarcasm is not a useful replacement for larger-than-life, devilish charisma.

One of the major intrigues is the addition of Lin-Manuel Miranda as a co-lyricist – propping up the timeless work done by legendary creative Howard Ashman. Miranda has added a few numbers here – including brand-new tunes for Ariel (who, it’s important to note, only actually gets one song in the original film) and for Eric. The most fun of the bunch is the lyrical acrobatics of TikTok-friendly “The Scuttlebutt”.

If you’d asked, two years ago, to imagine what a live-action Little Mermaid might look and sound like, you’d probably not be too far off the results here. Nothing is unexpected, or a departure from the original. It’s an adept movie – happy to sail to box office success without braving uncharted creative waters.