Shannon Watches Movies: The Little Mermaid

I am not the biggest fan of the Disney remakes. A lot of them just seem unnecessary and fall flat in comparison to the original animated movies. I was pretty excited for this one however because of Halle Bailey. I really like her and her voice is absolutely amazing. I do think this was a great movie and definitely my favorite of the live action Disney musicals. But I feel like all disney remakes have their problems and this one was no exception.

I'm going to start out with the positives of this movie: I almost cried at Halle's version of Part of Your World. She has such a beautiful voice and that just got me in the feels. It was really great. I also thought Melissa McCarthy as Ursula was really really great- her singing voice was just kind of perfectly sinister for Ursula and it felt like she was having a good time. And she was Ursula's aunt and I feel like my favorite spin on stories is to make people related.

The original songs in the movie I thought were pretty good! I'm a fan of Lin Manuel Miranda so of corse I kind of liked them- but I'm not much of a fan of the original songs in the live action Disney remakes. Especially when usually there's a broadway original song that maybe should have been there instead. I haven't seen Little Mermaid on Broadway- but I know they have some good songs. My favorite original song was Scuttlebutt- but I do kind of wish that they had given Daveed Diggs a rap song because he is such a good rapper and can do really fast rap songs! My sister loved scuttlebutt though and now loves Awkwafina because of it.

The bad parts of this movie: the CGI for flounder was really uncanny and Sebastian wasn't really that much better. There would be a really great scene and then they would show one of them and it took me out a bit. It wasn't terrible but it was a bit weird.

It made sense why Ariel and Eric were drawn to each other- but because Ariel couldn't talk it did seem like it was a little lacking in the chemistry. I also love Javier Bardem- but I think he was maybe a little intense and there didn't seem to be much chemistry between him and Halle either. It was just a little bit odd.

Slight spoiler for the end- but I have 2 things to say about it. The Ursula fight was intense and really cool to see live action. There's also a scene at the very end where Ariel and Eric are together- and in the ocean you see him: Javier Bardem- just treading water... and I cracked up laughing. It was just really silly looking. Then they show a bunch of mermaids that they did not show in the movie and they'll probably have a Disney plus show or something.

Overall I think this movie is definitely a must see. I would go out and see it in theaters- it's definitely worth it.

Bye!

-Shannon