You'd think a company like Disney with the amount of money and resources that they have to draw upon would be able to develop some original ideas but no nope, here's another live action remake. The biggest issue straight out of the gate is that much like pretty much all these live action remakes is that it didn't need to be made. If I want to watch any of the films that have been re made then 9 times out of 10 I'm going to watch the original animation, they're just classics with heart that can't be re created in live action. That being said this film exists and I have limitless so may as well watch it.
Another big issue I had with this film is the pacing, it's a 2hrs 15 mins kids film and with the attention span that kids have today even if it was well paced kids would be bored by the end. This film to me felt like it had a lot of filler particularly once (spoiler) Arial gets her legs in the second act and none of it was that interesting. For me the film didn't add anything that would have made the animation better if it had been in there. That being said this film isn't a total loss, Halle Bailey (not Halle Berry 🐱) is great as arial, when she hits the high note in part of your world I couldn't help but be amazed. In fact that song was probably the stand out scene of the film for me, it was brilliantly recreated.
Bailey is also forced to convey the emotion of her character for a large part of the film just with her eyes and she does a great job of it. I also felt Melisa McCarthy was great as Ursula although I felt her character was underused in what was ultimately an anti-climatic final act. I do want to give a special to mention to Javier Bardem as he gives probably the flattest performance of his entire career as a King Triton. I genuinely got the impression from his performance that he didn't really want to be in this film and to be honest I can't blame him as much like his performance the film feels largely flat for the most part.
Another big issue I had with this film is the pacing, it's a 2hrs 15 mins kids film and with the attention span that kids have today even if it was well paced kids would be bored by the end. This film to me felt like it had a lot of filler particularly once (spoiler) Arial gets her legs in the second act and none of it was that interesting. For me the film didn't add anything that would have made the animation better if it had been in there. That being said this film isn't a total loss, Halle Bailey (not Halle Berry 🐱) is great as arial, when she hits the high note in part of your world I couldn't help but be amazed. In fact that song was probably the stand out scene of the film for me, it was brilliantly recreated.
Bailey is also forced to convey the emotion of her character for a large part of the film just with her eyes and she does a great job of it. I also felt Melisa McCarthy was great as Ursula although I felt her character was underused in what was ultimately an anti-climatic final act. I do want to give a special to mention to Javier Bardem as he gives probably the flattest performance of his entire career as a King Triton. I genuinely got the impression from his performance that he didn't really want to be in this film and to be honest I can't blame him as much like his performance the film feels largely flat for the most part.