IMDb plot summary: A young mermaid makes a deal with a sea witch to trade her beautiful voice for human legs so she can discover the world above water and impress a prince.
Directed by Rob Marshall. Starring Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King, and Melissa McCarthy.
The Little Mermaid is the live-action adaptation of Disney's classic 1989 animated film. It follows a mermaid named Ariel who falls in love with a human prince and trades away her voice to the Sea Witch Ursula for a pair of legs and a chance to pursue her romance. While this isn't a perfect film by any means and is definitely not as good as the original, there are quite a few things I appreciate about it. Halle Bailey as Ariel is fantastic, just the right combination of confident and vulnerable to make her easy to root for, and with, of course, a very lovely voice. The film also gives much more attention to Prince Eric, giving him a much more distinctive personality so that the romance between the two is actually convincing. Where it falls disappointingly flat are the visuals, particularly in the segments in the ocean, which are dark and gloomy with very few contrasting colors, making it both uninteresting and at times confusing to watch. The character design is upsetting too -- obviously Flounder looks blah, but I was also completely let down by Ursula. She is absolutely stunning in the animated film, but here her octopus tentacles are so completely disconnected from Melissa McCarthy's head and arms that it was actively distracting. I feel like this interview is coming out piecemeal rather than giving a sense of the whole, but that's kind of how I had to process it. I liked it more than I didn't, but it was disappointingly unimaginative in its visuals.
How it entered my Flickchart:
The Little Mermaid > Captain Phillips
The Little Mermaid < Dark Passage
The Little Mermaid > Hustle
The Little Mermaid < The Country Girl
The Little Mermaid > Moonstruck
The Little Mermaid > The Song of Lunch
The Little Mermaid > Decision to Leave
The Little Mermaid > Whisky Galore!
The Little Mermaid < We're No Angels (1955)
The Little Mermaid < The Mummy (1932)
The Little Mermaid < Maria Full of Grace
The Little Mermaid > Ghost World
Final spot: #1226 out of 3881, or 68%.
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