Disney’s remake of the classic fairy tale is content to copy the company’s hit animation.
Musical
The Little Mermaid, directed by Rob Marshall. 136 min. K12. ★★
The little Mermaid is aimed at Disney’s 100th anniversary. The company’s previous version of the fairy tale was a hit animation of the same name from 1989. It is probably more familiar to many than the Danish author HC Andersen original work from 1837.
The new version takes the animation’s script as its starting point, although the new film is mostly acted by human forces and is almost an hour longer. Some scenes have been added and events expanded.
Romantic the story of the musical begins as in the previous film: Ariel (Halle Bailey) has forgotten to collect things lost by people, even though his father, the sea king Triton (Javier Bardem), waiting for him.
Ariel gets reprimanded, but it doesn’t dilute her rebellion. Soon he rushes to the surface of the sea, sees a prince sailing on a ship (Jonah Hauer-King) and falls in love. Instead of a tail, Ariel wants legs to walk to her beloved. He is ready to give his voice in the barter.
The Little Mermaid you could think of it as a prototype of a teenage rebel from a time when fathers still decided on their daughters’ marriages and life circles. However, the father’s harshness is a modern addition: perhaps the young woman’s rebellion against male authority has been seen as attractive.
However, the attraction is not transferred to the big screen. Javier Bardem plays the film’s most thankless role as a single father whose most interesting feature is his pearl breastplate.
The title of the best supporting character goes to the villain of the story, the mermaid Ursula. Part acting Melissa McCarthy has got excellent tentacles and movement language and över’s drag make-up.
Ursula’s song also works, although its unrestrainedness and multiple ironies have been stripped away. No more witches. Laula sings “in that country, men want a woman who is completely silent” and “gentlemen hunt her who remains completely mute”, as in the animated version.
He has written new lyrics and also new songs for the film Lin-Manuel Miranda, the golden finger of musicals. However, it is the most beautiful of the songs Alan Menken’s Under the Seawhich already won the Oscar for best original film for the animated film.
As the only musical scene, it is better than the animated version. During a song celebrating underwater life, it seems like a thousand Open nature the most beautiful sea scene would have exploded onto the big screen.
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Halle Bailey’s beautiful voice does not save the film.
The movie Has directed Rob Marshall, who has experience with musical successes and fairy tale adaptations. His resume includes, among others Chicago (2002), Into the Woods (2014) and The return of Maija Poppanen (2018).
All the mentioned movies are The Little Mermaid better ones. Although the voice saves a lot in the case of Ariel, the beautiful voice of the lead actress Halle Bailey does not save the film. Sometimes too much is counted on it.
The main star was talked about long before the premiere. Bailey is not white, which caused the most toxic side of the fans to roar on the internet.
Of course, Andersen’s original story has not been loudly demanded to be respected otherwise: walking in the fairy tale brought pain to Ariel, and at the end of it, the mermaid had to either kill the prince or die herself.
Disney has softened the original story, but treats its own animation like a relic. The remake sometimes feels like a big money copy.
The year 1989 The Little Mermaid has been said to have started the renaissance of Disney’s animation studio. The 2023 version looks back to that time. It’s a soulless monument to the studio’s own history.
Screenplay by David Magee. Produced by John DeLuca, Rob Marshall, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Marc Platt. Starring Halle Bailey, Melissa McCarthy, Javier Bardem, Jonah Hauer-King.
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