The Little Mermaid (2023), directed by Rob Marshall, stars Halle Bailey, Javier Bardem, and Melissa McCarthy. Marshall brings to life a show stopping rendition of the 1989 classic. From the visuals to the soundtrack, this remake surely deserves all the hype and praise.
The Little Mermaid follows the tale of the mermaid Ariel, daughter of the king of the sea King Triton. Ariel is curious as can be about life beyond the surface and even more after her father has banned her from ever going there. She is very different from her sisters and often causes her father quite the headache with her talks about the surface world. After an argument with her father, Ariel is attracted to the surface and finally decides to swim all the way up. There, she sees Prince Eric celebrating with his crew aboard and she is enamored with him. When a firework causes the ship to burst into flames, Ariel saves Prince Eric and his dog, Max. Ariel uses her siren voice to wake up Prince Eric but quickly leaves before he can remember her face. This leaves Ariel saddened as she fears she will never see him again and she decides to strike a deal with her evil aunt Ursula. Ursula coerces Ariel into giving up her siren voice in exchange for a pair of legs. Ariel makes her way to finally reconnect with Prince Eric but he doesn’t recognize her. Now Ariel makes it her mission to get Prince Eric to fall in love with her all over again. But Ursula has plans to sabotage Ariel and steal her voice for good.
The Little Mermaid receives the most attention for its stunning visuals that have the great ability to bring the cartoon version to life. The film’s cinematography is Dion Beebe mixes CGI and live action filming to create this remake. The underwater scenes were filmed to make the cartoon seem more realistic and followed clear colors in order to replicate the feeling of water. Scenes out of the water were filmed against blue screens to get the best visuals out of the film. Coloring in the film is vibrant in and out of the water. Hues of purple and blue splash the screen and perfectly accompany Halle Bailey’s essence. The Little Mermaid has an amazing soundtrack that goes so well with the film. Halle Bailey lends her beautiful voice and sings renditions of the original 1989 classics such as Part of Your World, while Melissa McCarthy belts out Ursula’s Poor Unfortunate Souls. Jonah Hauer-King even sings in the film with his powerful song Wild Uncharted Waters. Musical sequences combining Hauer-King and Bailey’s voices produces the most musical Disney film of the summer. A movie not to be missed for sure.
Although The Little Mermaid is fairly popular, this 2023 remake caused quite the controversy for its cast of its leading lady. The film faced backlash as it decided to cast a black actress as opposed to the white women depicted in the original. Viewers found most issues with the fact that Bailey chose to keep her beautiful locks and the lack of traditional resemblance to the original Ariel. Racism attempted to overthrow the positivity that is supposed to surround a Disney movie. However, others found great pride and comfort in this new version. One person on the internet says, “Halle Bailey is THEE beloved Disney Princess Ariel, her singing and vocals made my family and I cry”. In my opinion, casting a black actress for Ariel was an excellent choice. It is about time younger children see more representations of themselves on the big screen, something I longed for as a child. Changing the race or ethnicity of a character has nothing to do with performance and can only uplift the ambiance of a film. Bailey surely has the talent to give an incredible performance and she does just that in her role as Ariel.
The Little Mermaid is by far my favorite film of the summer this past year. With beautiful and fresh faces as the new Ariel and Prince Eric, this film gives every little girl the hope to see someone just like them as a princess. The Little Mermaid has scored a 67% on Rotten Tomatoes and 7.2 on IMDb. A whopping $569.6 million in the Box Office is surely appropriate as this was one of the most anticipated films of the summer. The Little Mermaid is overall such a great film that perfect for the new generation of Disney viewers and the whole family will enjoy.
