The Little Mermaid
Disney’s latest ‘live action’ remake is strong on diversity if otherwise a redundant wade through familiar waters.
Wet wet wet: Jonah Hauer-King and Halle Bailey
“All my life I've been waiting for someone and when I find her, she's... she's a fish.” Thus spoke Tom Hanks’ Allen Bauer in Splash. Would that there was as comic a moment in Disney’s latest CGI-enhanced ‘live action’ remake. In spite of four new numbers from Lin-Manuel Miranda – including a jarring hip-hop duet between the crab and the gannet – it is a fairly loyal facsimile of the 1989 cartoon. But here, more than ever, it is Alan Menken’s score that drives the emotion, rather than any chemistry on the part of the two leads. Halle Bailey can swim and sing, and she is very pretty, but hers is not a performance of star wattage. And for all his earnestness, the London-born Jonah Hauer-King is a bit wet (in the metaphorical sense) and fails to make us believe that an English prince could fall for a mixed-race beauty across the ocean.
Ah, the ocean... In spite of a groundswell of films plumbing the visual potential of the aquamarine depths (with more on the way), the visuals here are pretty intoxicating. But the seabed won’t always be this way. When another shipwreck wreaks its havoc on the ocean floor, a mermaid despairs: “It’ll be thousands of years for the coral to grow back…” So that’s something to commend the film. In addition, there’s a deliciously camp turn from Melissa McCarthy as Ursula the Sea Witch, and a couple of musical numbers that register strongly, particularly the sweet and imaginatively rendered ‘Kiss the Girl.’ The story, too, retains some of its power, and being one of tolerance and diversity, it is more relevant today than ever.
It may or may not be a coincidence, but the part of Flounder here is voiced by Jacob Tremblay, the actor who also voiced the title role in Pixar’s Luca (2021). The latter was a funny, inventive and captivating cartoon about a sea creature who is desperate to learn more about the human world, willing even to forego his sea legs (at least temporarily). Obviously, Luca is a homage to The Little Mermaid (including elements of Pinocchio), but it brought an energy and humour to the material that is lacking in Disney’s latest re-hash. Luca is still available on Disney+ and provides considerably more entertainment value than this $250 million fantasy. One is prompted to ask, perhaps cynically, what is the point of a new edition of The Little Mermaid, when the enchanting original is still out there (also available on Disney+)? On a positive note, it is at least better than the Aladdin and Peter Pan remakes, which one would hope from a director of the calibre of Rob Marshall.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King, Daveed Diggs, Awkwafina, Jacob Tremblay, Noma Dumezweni, Art Malik, Javier Bardem, Melissa McCarthy, Martina Laird, Jessica Alexander, John Dagleish, Christopher Fairbank, Jude Akuwudike, Emily Coates, Kajsa Mohammar, Jodi Benson.
Dir Rob Marshall, Pro Marc Platt, Lin-Manuel Miranda, John DeLuca and Rob Marshall, Screenplay David Magee, from the original screenplay by Ron Clements and John Musker, and the story by Hans Christian Andersen, Ph Dion Beebe, Pro Des John Myhre, Ed Wyatt Smith, Music Alan Menken, Costumes Colleen Atwood, Sound Lee Salevan, Dialect coaches Sandra Butterworth, Joan Washington and Jill McCullough.
Walt Disney Pictures/Lucamar Productions/Marc Platt Productions-Walt Disney Studios.
135 mins. USA. 2023. UK and US Rel: 26 May 2022. Cert. PG.
