Dir: Rob Marshall
Halle Bailey brings purity and vocal power to the latest and best of a long line of Disney live action remakes.
Yet another repost to celebrate one year of DanLovesFilm, hope you enjoy.
There has been plenty of scrutiny over the past few years when it comes to Disney’s live-action remakes of their own beloved classics. The main concern that both audiences and critics have had with the remakes is the challenge of these photo-realistic characters to convey or produce the emotions that their fully animated counterparts have for decades. This is not an issue with their latest installment.
With her large saucer-like eyes and mesmeric singing voice, Halle Bailey is a real life Disney Princess with no need for animation or special effects. She well and truly brings Ariel to life on the big screen – It is hard to believe that her casting several years ago was met with so much controversy over social media.
Those who have seen the original 1989 Disney classic will know the story as it remains relatively unchained here, with the story playing out almost beat for beat, including some of the same jokes and even shots that are direct nods to the original. For those who are not familiar with the original, the story follows our titular mermaid, Ariel, who is the youngest daughter of the King of the Sea, King Triton. Ariel is young and curious, and despite warnings from her father, she yearns for the world beyond the oceans and it is on one of her many trips to the surface she gets a glimpse of Eric and is immediately smitten.
Triton learns of this and forbids Ariel from seeing the surface or humans again and as a result is easily manipulated by the evil sea witch Ursula, into giving away her beautiful siren’s voice in exchange for being a human for 3 days.
Lin-Manuel Miranda serves as a producer on the film and helped co-write a couple of new original songs for the film alongside Alan Menken, who returns to compose the score as he did in 1989. Prince Eric gets his own song in the remake and in typical Lin-Manuel Miranda fashion, Scuttle gets to rap. Lin-Manuel Miranda used his Hamilton connections to get Daveed Diggs on board to provide the voice of Sebastian, who, alongside Awkwafina as Scuttle, gets plenty of moments to shine. The pair had the audience in stitches at times.
The real star though is Bailey, who truly encapsulates Ariel’s purity and innocence and when it comes to her singing voice, she absolutely blows Jodi Benson out the water. Her rendition of ‘Part of Your World’ has so much more depth, emotion and sense of yearning than in the original which had people in my screening on the brink of tears.
The film is also a visual treat, the sequences under the sea are a true spectacle. Outstanding visual effects and magical use of colour bring the underwater world to life in front of your very eyes, just like Avatar: The Way of Water did last year. It almost makes you question why Ariel would ever want to leave such a beautiful place, especially when life on land seems quite drab in comparison.
The main issue I have with this retelling of the Disney classic is that it does not offer anything substantially new that the original did not already. This is something Disney have to address with all their future remakes that they have in the pipeline as it does make you question if these remakes serve any purpose other than a being a quick cash grab. The film is 55 minutes longer than the original and even though the time flew by, other than a couple of new songs, I struggle to see where this time went as there was nothing new in terms of character development or plot.
On the whole, this is a step in the right direction for Disney, which is quite poetic considering the 1989 original is considered the start of their renaissance. It will be interesting to see what they do with the upcoming live-action Snow White starring Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot. As for Bailey ,who puts in a star turn here, we will be seeing her again on the big screen later this year when she appears in the musical adaptation of The Colour Purple.
Dan Loves Film 
Another great review! Unfortunately, I missed this one when it came out during the summer. I have been skeptical about Disney’s live-action remakes. I did enjoy “Cruella” but overall they are pretty hit or miss for me. My review of “Cruella”:
https://huilahimovie.reviews/2021/06/24/cruella-2021-movie-review/
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Interesting. I’ve not seen a live-action remake of a Disney film yet. Maybe this would be a good one.
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