La Petite Sirène

I mean it's an okay film. But is that what Disney wants to achieve now? Just to make okay movies? What happened to making great and lasting ones? Is that just a thing of the past?

My biggest qualm with this movie is that the acting performances from the cast was lackluster. These Disney classics are sacred in a sense that they made us emotionally invested in them. It's disappointing to think that animated characters were able to "act" and exhibit more emotional pull more than live actors. The original made us feel for these characters.

This version had no heart in it, it's just the shell of the 1989 classic with an attempt to impress contemporary audiences but it still fell flat on its face.

The scenes in this movie felt rushed and it was just hard to watch all together without thinking they just had a checklist of events they wanted to make sure was there. The dialogue was sub-par. The new rap song was simply unbearable. I had my hands over my ears while it was happening.

The only thing I could compliment about this movie are the visual effects. I liked the feel of the setting. But other than that. It felt more two dimensional than the cartoon.

Missed the mark in so many ways: It's a children's movie, why are the colors so dark and muted (I did like Ursula's glowing tentacles)? Not saying it had to be bright, bubble gum pop colors but I could barely see what was going on half the time. Just doesn't seem the imagery was made with children in mind.

Why no background vocals? The musical numbers in the original Little Mermaid were FANTASTIC. This time they tuned them way down and took away all the excitement. Hallie sings well, but I still think background vocals would have made all of the songs sound soooo much better.

Loved Melissa McCarthy as Ursula.

Since they went out of their way to explain why Eric had parents of two races where was the explanation for why King Tristan had daughters of all races?

It was a decent attempt, but an absolute fail at being anywhere close to as good as the original. Meh.

The cgi in some scenes looks pretty weird, as avatar has elevated the way you record and do cgi underwater. The way they made the animals are so strange it seems that they have no life or emotions, as if it were all superfluous, the way the villain is not afraid, I tried to like it more it's just another live action to get rid of sales and reversals of products, without anything very original and without any kind of Disney charm and magic that we were I'm used to seeing it, anyway the Ericks don't have much charisma and it's just Erick with nothing, at the end of it all it's just another live action to be forgotten in a few months.

I don't take anything away from the actors, I take everything away from the director and script. Bland and boring is the best way to describe it.

The director I blame because seriously half of this movie should have been cut.

The screenwriters I blame because wow how do you make a live action remake this boring and bland. It's Disney for crying out loud.

Again I don't blame the actors at all, they did the best with a super subpar script.

I don't wish to give spoilers, because to anyone who wants to see this movie and make their own opinion please do. The main point is simply I'm glad I waited until this was out of the theater. This was a bloated mess that needed oversight from someone who cared about the Disney brand.

In fairness to the actors they all deserve credit and I would give a shout out to the casting agent who put the right people in the right place. It's too bad that the writers and director were not the right choice for this film.

4 stars for decent acting in a subpar Disney remake. This film needs to go in the vault.

To be honest, the live action remakes have been hit or miss. For every hit like Beauty and the Beast there have been misses like Dumbo. The Little Mermaid remake unfortunately falls in the later category. It fails to recapture the magic of the original. The newly added material is jarring, especially the sing by Aquafina. The CGI is weird...the realistic CGI animals are creepy...the child I was with didn't like them, "the crab is scary". Everything is dark and muted. I don't agree with those complaining about the casting. All of the actors were fine. Some were better than others, especially when comparing it to the original, but nothing was distractingly bad. I just feel it could have been done better.