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Absolutely superb!

Posted : 2 months ago on 27 January 2024 11:14

I also recommend the TV series, but not the sequel. I still think that Tarzan is the last great Disney movie, but pretty much everything else after lacks the magic that Disney once had, as far as I'm concerned.(with the exception of the surprisingly good Fantasia 2000, Bambi 2 and Emperor's New Groove) 10 years ago, this was one of my all-time favourites. I remember, every time I went swimming, I felt really inspired to be a mermaid. That's the effect this movie and the TV series had on me. The animation is absolutely gorgeous, especially the underwater scenes, and the storm. The script is intelligent and witty, and everyone involved did a marvellous job putting it across. The songs are fantastic, as always with Alan Menken. In fact, the only score of Alan Menken's I don't like is "Home on the Range". My favourites are "Part of your World"(my sister is always singing it around the house) and the wonderfully energetic "Under the Sea". The characters are probably the most memorable in a Disney movie, especially Ariel, a beautiful and feisty mermaid, with a dream of being a human. She has a beautiful voice also, well we have the talented Jodi Benson to thank for that. Sebastian is so funny here, a he was in the series, but as well as Flounder(another great character)he was ruined in the sequel. Kenneth Mars's Triton is an inspiring father-figure, who reminds me of my grandfather. The best character is without question, Ursula, who scarred me for life after watching her. Likewise with The Evil Manta from the series. Whilst her song is probably the least memorable song of the movie, it still works. Flotsam and Jetsam are also really creepy. Miles better than Ursula's really bland sister Morgana at any rate.To round off, I can't forget Louis the chef. He is so funny here, unlike in the sequel, where the same joke was repeated but badly underplayed. I can't believe some people hate this movie. It is one of Disney's best along with "Beauty and the Beast", "Lion King", "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and "Sleeping Beauty". Highly recommended for all ages. 10/10. Bethany Cox


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Absolutely superb!

Posted : 1 year, 7 months ago on 16 August 2022 03:36

I also recommend the TV series, but not the sequel. I still think that Tarzan is the last great Disney movie, but pretty much everything else after lacks the magic that Disney once had, as far as I'm concerned.(with the exception of the surprisingly good Fantasia 2000, Bambi 2 and Emperor's New Groove) 10 years ago, this was one of my all-time favourites. I remember, every time I went swimming, I felt really inspired to be a mermaid. That's the effect this movie and the TV series had on me. The animation is absolutely gorgeous, especially the underwater scenes, and the storm. The script is intelligent and witty, and everyone involved did a marvellous job putting it across. The songs are fantastic, as always with Alan Menken. In fact, the only score of Alan Menken's I don't like is "Home on the Range". My favourites are "Part of your World"(my sister is always singing it around the house) and the wonderfully energetic "Under the Sea". The characters are probably the most memorable in a Disney movie, especially Ariel, a beautiful and feisty mermaid, with a dream of being a human. She has a beautiful voice also, well we have the talented Jodi Benson to thank for that. Sebastian is so funny here, a he was in the series, but as well as Flounder(another great character)he was ruined in the sequel. Kenneth Mars's Triton is an inspiring father-figure, who reminds me of my grandfather. The best character is without question, Ursula, who scarred me for life after watching her. Likewise with The Evil Manta from the series. Whilst her song is probably the least memorable song of the movie, it still works. Flotsam and Jetsam are also really creepy. Miles better than Ursula's really bland sister Morgana at any rate.To round off, I can't forget Louis the chef. He is so funny here, unlike in the sequel, where the same joke was repeated but badly underplayed. I can't believe some people hate this movie. It is one of Disney's best along with "Beauty and the Beast", "Lion King", "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and "Sleeping Beauty". Highly recommended for all ages. 10/10. Bethany Cox


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The Little Mermaid review

Posted : 1 year, 9 months ago on 6 June 2022 06:45

Terrible película con mensajes dañinos en los que la villana tenía todas las de ganar y en ningún momento demuestran por que Ariel no debió tener las consecuencias permanentes que ya había adquirido.

-Tritón odia a los humanos por que se comen y esclavizan como mascotas a sus ciudadanos (jamás le prueban lo contrario)

-Ariel se "enamora" de un príncipe por guapo al que jamás le dan mas caracterización.

-La bruja se da cuenta de que la hija testaruda de tritón haría cualquier cosa por su capricho y la hace ceder todo en un contrato, incluyendo su cuerpo.

-La bruja le quita la voz por que dice que a los chicos no les debes de hablar para conquistarlos, solo basta la belleza superficial (y la peli le da la razón)

-Al final Ariel pierde (como es de esperar) y como ahora está atada a pagar su deuda con su cuerpo a la bruja su padre no tiene mas remedio que tomar su lugar, la bruja, ahora con magia, gana.

-Pero al final derrotan a la bruja por que, oh si, la única debilidad de una bruja superpodersa con control absoluto del mar es un palo de madera que la atraviesa xddd.

Todo mal con esta película.


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The Little Mermaid review

Posted : 2 years, 4 months ago on 8 November 2021 07:02

This time, Hans Christian Anderson rescues the Disney animation factory from the fire - this is a wonderfully colourful and fun adaptation of his almost Faustian story of being very careful what you wish for. "Ariel" is a beautiful mermaid who is fascinated by what goes on ashore - and that only gets more obsessive when she espies, and ultimately rescues from a violent storm, the equally gorgeous "Prince Eric" and falls hook, line and sinker. Her sagacious father "King Triton" forbids her from seeing him again and so, like any resourceful teenager, she enters a pact with evil sea witch "Ursula" that allows her to become human for three days and go ashore to seek out her new love - but at what cost... The support characters are so good in this - especially Samuel Wright as the long-suffering chancellor/lobster "Sebastian" and Pat Carroll as the evil "Ursula" aided and abetted by her slippery eel sidekicks "Flotsam" & "Jetsam" and Alan Menken's songs, including, "Under the Sea" & "Kiss the Girl" jauntily carry it all along apace. 20-odd years later, it's still well worth a watch.


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The Little Mermaid

Posted : 8 years, 4 months ago on 27 November 2015 07:28

The nostalgia is heavy with this one for me. Coming out in winter 1989, I was two-years-old and this was the first movie I saw in theaters. Apparently, the opening shark attack frightened me so that I refused to leave my mother’s lap until the appearance of Scuttle, at which point I had calmed down enough to sit on my own, and was completely enraptured by the viewing experience. I’ve since watched the film dozens and dozens of times, knowing practically every piece of dialog and song lyric.

 

What made me happy about this viewing experience, and it’s been a few years since I last watched it, was how The Little Mermaid still works. The jokes still land, the songs are memorable, Ursula is a glorious villain, Prince Eric an impossibly handsome prince, and Ariel the first of the new Disney princesses. The Little Mermaid signaled a, pardon the unintentional pun, sea change for the studio. Ushering in the Renaissance, it was a return to the big Broadway-style musicals from the studio, transforming beloved fairy tales into glossy family entertainment.

 

After the “just good enough” Oliver and Company, Disney lavished more time, money, and effort upon this feature. The why is easy enough to figure out, the major players working on the film knew they had something major on their hands and lobbied for more time and money. Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, the best things to enter the Disney studios in some time, pushed hard for greatness in their work, turning in a collection of songs that have become staples of the Disney songbook. The quality of these songs pushed the directors to lobby for more breathing room and effort, for a return to the quality of the Silver Era. Thank god they held out.

 

While The Little Mermaid is not perfect, some of the animation is not as lush as follow-ups, some of the backgrounds not as detailed, but it’s a quantum leap in effort from the prior era. This is a seismic change, and one watches the film with the feeling that something was happening within, as though a sleeping giant was awakening. Later films like Beauty and the Beast proved this feeling to be true, and The Little Mermaid holds its own nicely.

 

Granted, like many other prior adaptations, The Little Mermaid smooths over some of the darker edges of the story, transplants a happy ending in place of the tragedy of the original, and does put some effort into making its princess more lively and spunky. Ariel’s central romance is still weird, but her clear preference is the human world, a obsession that the film hints as being a life-long one. She treats Prince Eric as her tourist guide to wild world of humanity, seemingly uninterested in any romance, until a romantic boat ride accompanied by Sebastian serenading them with “Kiss the Girl.” It’s not the only story-telling problem that the film encounters.

 

For all of her personality, Ariel goes weirdly flat in the final act. Her agency, scheming, and smarts tossed aside so that Eric and King Triton can take on Ursula, leaving her cast off to the sidelines. For all of mold-breaking she did in the first two acts, she returns to the mute, helpless damsel-in-distress of the previous eras princesses. The Little Mermaid wanted to both change-up the formula, and return to it for revitalizing powers. Enough of it leans hard on shaking things up that these weird moments of problematic story structures can be forgiven.

 

And then there’s Ursula. If for no other reason, watch The Little Mermaid for it’s the grand bitch diva Ursula. A corpulent sea witch, whose bottom half is that of a black squid and top half based on Divine, she’s one of the greatest and most memorable of villains in the Disney canon. Her diva tantrums know no limits, and her penchant for quips and fabulous shade placed the germ for my love of drag queens.


If The Little Mermaid isn't as perfect as Sleeping Beauty, that doesn't mean it isn't one of the great benchmarks in the studio's output. Think of how beloved it is, and how it so clearly earns that reputation. Sure, it's outclassed by later films in the Renaissance, but it comes the closest to the Golden or Silver Era magic for the first time in roughly twenty years. It's a return to the lively musicals the studio used to put out with regularity, and just different enough from the set formula to points towards the later films in the Renaissance and beyond.



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A classic

Posted : 8 years, 5 months ago on 22 October 2015 08:13

I already saw this movie but since it was a while back and since it was available on Disney+, I thought I might as well check it out again. Well, first of all, back in the 80’s, Disney was going through some rough times and even though most of their movies had done fairly well at the box-office, none of them had been very memorable.  In fact, even if during the 70’s, their animated movies didn't turn out to be really impressive either. Eventually, they managed to make a massive come-back with this movie which would be the start of the era known as the Disney Renaissance. In fact, I actually saw the damned thing in the movie theatre when it was released and I must have been 9 or 10 years old at the time. Eventually, to be honest, even though I thought it was well made and fairly entertaining, I can’t say I really loved this movie though. Basically, this movie would establish the template for the following Disney productions during the 90’s and one of the trademarks of this template would be some musical-comedy format with Broadway-styled songs but, to be honest, I have always been rather bored by these songs. Well, after 30 long years and many rewatches, I think I finally get this movie. Above all, what really impressed was Ariel as this character was pretty much pitch-perfect. Indeed, not only she was quite gorgeous but she also had the charisma of such classic princess like Snow White or Cinderella. However, what made her such a success was the fact that she was also a perfect representation of a modern teenager and this mix was just so well done. The story itself was also a solid old fashioned fairy tale, something they used to do so well in the past and it was a great idea to finally come-back to this genre, especially with such a tremendous end-result. The only down point would be when they turned Ariel into a mute. Obviously, they needed to find some obstacle to temporarily slow down this romance but this choice made Ariel, such a well-rounded character, terrible passive during the 3rd act. Anyway, to conclude, even if it might not be flawless, it was still a massive classic fairy tale from Disney and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 



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A classic

Posted : 9 years, 10 months ago on 18 May 2014 06:54

'The Little Mermaid' is considered one of Disney's best movies! It is indeed pretty good! A classic!

The plot focuses on Ariel (Jodi Benson), a 16 year old mermaid who wants to go on land which her father Triton (Kenneth Mars) won't let her do. Ariel goes to see Ursula (Pat Carroll) who wants to kill her to get revenge on her father, who banished her a while ago! Ariel soon meets Eric (Christopher Daniel Barnes) and they fall in love. Ariel also gets legs!

The plot is very similar to 'Splash' in which Allen Bauer (Tom Hanks) fell in love with a mermaid (Daryl Hannah) who was secretly a mermaid! Except in that movie, the man is the protagonist and here the mermaid is the protagonist!

'The Little Mermaid' has a good screenplay, voice acting, animation (as usual) and some funny characters!


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Review of The Little Mermaid

Posted : 11 years, 9 months ago on 27 June 2012 11:47

The Little Mermaid is often hailed as one of Disney's best films. By some, it's considered Disney's best film, period. So after years of merely hearing about The Little Mermaid, I finally got the chance to judge for myself.

Ariel, a young mermaid of just 16, is fascinated by the world above sea level. But her father and king of the ocean, Tritan, as well as a musical crab named Sebastin, is worried for her safety. But after saving a human, Prince Eric, from drowning, Ariel is determined to go back to the surface and not only see him, but to marry him as well. Naturally, Tritan doesn't allow it, so Ariel finally betrays her father, and accepts magic from the sea witch, Ursula. Ariel is transformed into a human, but only can remain as such for 3 days. If she fails to kiss Prince Eric before those three days are up, Ariel will belong to Ursula. And it doesn't help that Ariel completely loses her voice as part of the deal.

I'll admit, I wasn't all that impressed during the first 20 minutes to half hour. Yeah, the animation was nice, and the songs were spectacular, but it was all just a little...good. I was expecting "great," so merely "good" was a little disappointing. Thankfully, The Little Mermaid quickly got better after this.

The songs, as I just mentioned, are spectacular. There's the grand "Part of Your World," the upbeat "Under The Sea," the sinister, "Poor Unfortunate Souls," the romantic, "Kiss The Girl," and my personal favorite, "Les Poissons," which is a song that Eric's chef sings about the art of making sea food meals, much to Sebastin's distress.


The characters are generally memorable. Sebastin is a bumbling stick-in-the-mud, Scuttle is loony and terribly stupid, and the film's villain, Ursula, is certainly one of my favorite Disney villains. However, I found Ariel to be a bit of a brat, and Prince Eric is no different than any other prince Disney has produced.

I personally didn't see anything in the score that could've caused The Little Mermaid to win an academy award, but alas, it did. That's not to say the score (composed by Alan Menken) is completely dull, because there are some moments where the music really shines, it's just a little underwhelming for an award-winning score. The lyrical songs are much better.

The Little Mermaid is undeniably entertaining. There are moments of fun, moments of romance, and lots of memorable songs and characters. In the end, it's not my favorite Disney film, and it's not quite a masterpiece, but I'd be a liar to say I didn't have a good time.


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The Little Mermaid review

Posted : 11 years, 10 months ago on 24 May 2012 12:10

Known for starting the Disney Renaissance, this is yet another hit for Disney and has all the ingredients blended perfectly: Fun, frolly, music and a great (and suggestive) fun-loving heroine in the lead with fun supporting characters in the rear. This is undoubtedly one of their strongest works and one that can be used as an example to point out the greatness of Disney. However, unlike most others, it's very sexual and hormone-filled kids might see it from a totally different way. You know, Ariel and the rest of the mermaids. Speaking of which, Ariel is a sure-fire icon of Disney and one of the best female protagonist and Jodi Benson's V.O. provided a-lot of personality to the character and her portrayal was very fitting. If Ariel had been given another personality, then she would've been very weak and unlikable.

The songs are great although I personally think the whole Under Da Sea should not be shown to kids because of its, er, quite-sexual imagery and some of the lyrics (Darling it's better, down where it's wetter)... seriously, Sebastian?

So, The Little Mermaid is an enjoyable flick and very fun to watch!

8.6/10


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Disney has been revived!

Posted : 13 years, 7 months ago on 19 August 2010 03:08

The Little Mermaid became the start of the 10 Disney Renaissances (others are The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty And The Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan and Tarzan) and what a great success and breakthrough it became! It was the first animated musical from Disney since The Jungle Book. I think the message of this film is that it shows how much people can fall in love no matter how different one is from the other (like Beauty And The Beast).


Set at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean of a young mermaid named Ariel who is unhappy with her life down under the sea and she seeks to become a human much to the dismay of her father King Triton. One night, she saves the young Prince Eric from drowning and then falls in love with him. She sings to him on the beach and he falls in love with her but he doesn't know her name or where she is so he ends up searching for her. When her father discovers the secret grotto of Ariel's that is filled with human artefacts including a statue of Eric that was given to him for his birthday, Ariel goes to the sea-witch Ursula and is forced to make a choice between her family under the sea or the man she loves on the land.


The Little Mermaid was originally planned as a part of one of Walt Disney's earliest feature films so development started in the late 1930s just after Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs was released and it has taken them around 50 years to make. This was the last Disney animated feature to use hand-painted cels and analog camera and film work. 1,000 different colors were used on 1,100 backgrounds. Over one million drawings were done in total. This film was the most effects-animation heavy Disney animated feature since Fantasia (1940). The two minute storm sequence alone took 10 special effects animators over a year to finish. Effects animation supervisor Mark Dindal estimated that over a million bubbles were drawn for this film, in addition to the use of other processes such as airbrushing, back lighting, superimposition, and some flat-shaded computer animation. The Little Mermaid was nominated for 3 Academy Awards and won 2 of them. It won Best Original Score and Best Original Song ("Under The Sea") and another song in the film was nominated for Best Original Song which was called "Kiss The Girl".


Overall, The Little Mermaid is a magical, funny and inspiring Disney Classic that Walt Disney himself would be proud of. Disney has been revived once again.


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