The Little Mermaid

This will be a good movie to watch at home with little kids, so you can chat with them about the action in the movie. There is one great learning opportunity here: the way the sea witch goes about using the desires and weaknesses of mer-people to get them painted into a corner, then offers an even worse deal to try and fix it. She is always adding some difficult provision to the agreement during negotiations, and she has a fresh scheme going every time she encounters anyone. Real life is like that sometimes. Mostly the message seems to be the power of love and niceness. Not everyone will be happy with the animation style, which is so simple and almost video game-like it seems unfinished in places. Not the usual thing for those used to animated features made be a brigade of artists and technicians. The credits here are remarkably brief. It gets better as it rolls along, with lots to look at and no boring bits. There are stylistic touches that are very likeable, and loads of beauty. The story is nice and should work for the little ones. It answers their questions, never assuming that they can guess or fill in where an adult might. The story really does progress, too, building dramatic tension until ... don't want to give it away. When a child asks, "Why don't they just (fill in the blank)?" Because the story does not have to make sense. But this ending pretty much does make sense! The hopeless situation comes to a happy ending and all is great.