La Petite Sirène

I don't take anything away from the actors, I take everything away from the director and script. Bland and boring is the best way to describe it.

The director I blame because seriously half of this movie should have been cut.

The screenwriters I blame because wow how do you make a live action remake this boring and bland. It's Disney for crying out loud.

Again I don't blame the actors at all, they did the best with a super subpar script.

I don't wish to give spoilers, because to anyone who wants to see this movie and make their own opinion please do. The main point is simply I'm glad I waited until this was out of the theater. This was a bloated mess that needed oversight from someone who cared about the Disney brand.

In fairness to the actors they all deserve credit and I would give a shout out to the casting agent who put the right people in the right place. It's too bad that the writers and director were not the right choice for this film.

4 stars for decent acting in a subpar Disney remake. This film needs to go in the vault.

The Little Mermaid is a good example of what's wrong with Disney these days (at least in my opinion) - besides some casting choices that may rise pro and contra voices (I don't care), this movie is dead like plastic. The songs are stale and uninspired, the special effects department did okay, the actors did okay, but well, the formula of Disney movies is now a walking dead corpse, too many times chewed on. But this is not only a question of modern changes to fit to the taste of zeitgeist but for a long time Disney is like a recycling factory: with every turn of the machine the product gets worse and worse, at least if you don't add something new, fresh and substantial, something creative. So my greatest complain: the music is average, the visuals are average, the story is the typical Disney blabla, the entertaining factor is rather low. A typical movie made from the construction kit branded "Disney". But maybe I'm just getting old and grumpy and my by age weakened eyes and heart cannot see the beauty in this, well, product.

One actress is not enough to save a movie even if she plays the main character. This happens all the time and this remake is proof of it. The weakest thing in this version, of course, is the CGI characters. I thought the worst thing ever seen in these remakes was the dog from 2019's Lady and the Tramp, but this Flounder is outrageous. It's the Jar Jar Binks of Disney's remakes. And this Sebastian looks odd and graceless. Three years and Disney couldn't do any better? Are you serious? In overall, the underwater scenes are not what I expected to see and, as some critic says, "recreated with Windows 10 screensaver graphics".

Now let me explain what is the problem with Ursula. In an animated feature you can exaggerate the expressions any way you like but you can't do that in live action. This is not Melissa McCarthy's fault, of course, but I don't lend ears to those who praise her performance with biased reasonings. And the changes in the final scene were simply the last straw but I won't spoil anything here. Seriously, I couldn't believe it when I watched it.

In summary, the movie doesn't work because Halle Bailey is surrounded by things that don't work. And that's not Halle's fault, it's all Disney's fault.

Missed the mark in so many ways: It's a children's movie, why are the colors so dark and muted (I did like Ursula's glowing tentacles)? Not saying it had to be bright, bubble gum pop colors but I could barely see what was going on half the time. Just doesn't seem the imagery was made with children in mind.

Why no background vocals? The musical numbers in the original Little Mermaid were FANTASTIC. This time they tuned them way down and took away all the excitement. Hallie sings well, but I still think background vocals would have made all of the songs sound soooo much better.

Loved Melissa McCarthy as Ursula.

Since they went out of their way to explain why Eric had parents of two races where was the explanation for why King Tristan had daughters of all races?

It was a decent attempt, but an absolute fail at being anywhere close to as good as the original. Meh.

To be honest, the live action remakes have been hit or miss. For every hit like Beauty and the Beast there have been misses like Dumbo. The Little Mermaid remake unfortunately falls in the later category. It fails to recapture the magic of the original. The newly added material is jarring, especially the sing by Aquafina. The CGI is weird...the realistic CGI animals are creepy...the child I was with didn't like them, "the crab is scary". Everything is dark and muted. I don't agree with those complaining about the casting. All of the actors were fine. Some were better than others, especially when comparing it to the original, but nothing was distractingly bad. I just feel it could have been done better.