Brief Story Line
As the daughter of King Triton (Javier Bardem - Dune etc) who ruled the seas, the mermaid Ariel (Halle Bailey - Grown-ish TV series etc) had been really fascinated with the human's world. Her infatuation was enhanced after she saw prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King - A Dog's Way Home etc). But the king was adamant that Ariel should avoid humans at all cost and he assigned his trusted advisor Sebastian the crab (Daveed Diggs - Snowpiercer TV series etc) to monitor her. However, Ariel disregarded her father's wish and still went on with her best friend Flounder the fish (Jacob Tremblay - Good Boys etc) and the seabird Scuttle (Awkwafina - Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings etc) to collect anything related to humans.
Meanwhile, the king's sister, the sea witch Ursula (Melissa McCarthy - Thunder Force etc) was looking at the situation and saw this as opportunity to revenge on Triton. And her plan would come to fruition after an incident involving Ariel and Eric, which would forever change their fates.
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
All along I thought that I had seen the 1989 animated version of the story but after watching this one, I think I might have done only half cause I could not really remember the ending (although I remember clearly about the ship's scene, or that song Under the Sea). It was a total opposite of my wife who even remember the Prince's shirt in that ship's scene and what songs were not in the original. Anyway, since I did not really have any recollection, I enjoyed the story till its ending.
Unlike other musical movies, I did not really feel overwhelmed by the continuous singing. In fact I think it was probably only 7 or 8 times singing and 3 of the songs were nice including the Little Mermaid theme Part of Your World that was beautifully sung by Halle Bailey (and made my wife could not stop her tears from flowing) and that really fun song Kiss the Girl. I actually did a brief rewatch of the original film on Disney+ and did a bit of comparison on the songs. My wife felt that only For the First Time that seemed suitable in the movie, and we both felt that song by Awkwafina was funny despite critics did not seem to like it.
In term of special effects, I thought this one was as good as any Disney movies which I think is understandable considering they spent USD 250 million budget for it. Bringing certain characters to life was certainly not an easy task and they did try their best in doing so. But when they tried to make them as realistic as possible (despite mermaid and mermen were actually fantasy creatures), it resulted to the characters did not look as adorable as before, especially Flounder who looked too thin. Luckily other creatures look good enough and did not really have any impact to us, even though at certain times they seem a bit cartoonish, especially during the singing part.
Since the duration of this movie was a little over 2 hours (far longer than the animated film that was only 81 minutes), it added extra scenes that were useful to provide context plus obviously the new songs composed by the experienced Lin-Manuel Miranda (Encanto, Mary Poppins Returns etc). The scores were done by Alan Menken who actually did the work for the original film together with the late Howard Ashman (in the closing credits, I saw the movie was dedicated to him). Btw, there was no mid or post end credit scene here, just some scenes in the sea accompanied by few songs.
The cast actually did a great job here, with Halle Bailey in particular who excelled in her singing (as my wife mentioned, she would have hated this movie if she could not really sing). I also felt Jonah-Hauer King and Melissa McCarthy looked a lot like the animated version and they were really suitable in their characters. Daveed Diggs amazing as Sebastian and Awkwafina with her totally recognizable voice, perfect as this character. Aside from those names there were also other support cast such as Art Malik (True Lies etc) as Prime Minister Sir Grimsby and Noma Dumezweni (The Watcher TV series etc) as Queen Selina. The movie itself was directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago, Memoirs of a Geisha etc).
Overall this was a quite beautiful live version of Disney classic. It still managed to keep the essence of the original story. There was huge controversy on the casting of Halle as mermaid, and it could take a while before we could get used to the idea, but if she was able to perform the role nicely, I personally think it's OK. So, if you like the story of Disney's Princesses, then likely you would love this one too, as long as you keep open mind about it. If my wife who is an absolutely major fan of the original could love this one, I am sure you could at least give this a chance. Even for me who is not a fan of musical could still enjoy this movie.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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