The Little Mermaid live action re-make

So, I have had a look at the cast list on IMDB. Also in the upcoming soundtrack in Apple music.

I can confirm the the character of Grimsby has carried across to the new film. He'll be played by Art Malik.

Chef Louis and Prince Eric's sheepdog are still unknown.

Although there are four songs that (as of date) are unlisted, I couldn't see a listing for Les Poissons.

That looks so cheap

UK premiere screening last night in Leicester Square

I know it is impossible to have live action singing fish and so forth but the amount of animation in this makes me wonder why on earth they bothered when a brilliant animated version already exists and has been enchanting audiences for decades.

It isn't a live action film in any meaningful sense and the joins between the live and the animated are too obvious for me.

Very hard no on this one.

Disney should drop these remakes in favour of creating new musical animated films. The talent and the stories are out there. Remakes are not the way forward.

I cannot forgive the hair. Just a couple of shades more red would have done! And I really dislike how she sings Part of Your World. Plus, Sebastian sort of looks like a paper cut out, it's weird.

I went to see this film yesterday. Overall it is enjoyable and Halle Bailey's Ariel is quite charming (even though the lack of acting experience shows). In some scenes it seems like the material is on top of her instead of the other way around and in other scenes she comes across as very sincere and real.

The film starts with a very big disappointment, as the first 2 songs are cut. Both the beautiful instrumental climax of the castle/swimming merfolk and the song "daughters of Triton" are no longer there. We see the ship in the waves and the camera goes underwater and we hear a few seconds of orchestra building up, and I felt my eyes getting a little wet, and then the shot and music was cut to another shot (with just noise) of the ship again. Which was weird, and then we saw another underwater shot for the 2nd time, and again, a little hint of the instrumental melody of part of your world started and I felt my eyes almost getting wet again. And then it suddenly stopped again?! And then there was a silent shot of Triton and his daughters sitting on the underwater "stools", having a chat without music. And that was that. So basically, the melody went nowhere and stopped out of nothing. This was like a hard slap in my face. This would have been a glorious opening, they even gave us 2 setups towards that melody and they threw it away. Why? I was beginning to ascend out of my seat and then hit with a baseball bat. This really should have been the moment to captivate the audience right away and make them fall in love with the beauty of the film. Now I could tell the audience wasn't charmed at all yet.

What follows is a couple of scenes with dialogue to set the story and setting. The whole story line is the same as the original film, with little changes in details here and there. Sebastian, flounder and scuttle are really not funny anymore and do add little to the film. What I also didn't like was the unnecessary changes in female empowerment, Ariel is now the one who kills Ursula and saves the damsel in distress called Eric. Ariel is the one who refuses the kiss first. Ariel doesn't sign anything with Ursula, she is just turned into a human without proper consent, so we can't really blame her, Ursula also put a little extra something in the potion which makes Ariel know nothing about a kiss or the actual agreement. So we as the audience could never think that Ariel actually wants a man and tries him to kiss her, etc. This all felt a bit unnecessary.

Aside from this forced tweaks, I actually did like the film. There were many moments that put a smile on my face, such as the "Part of your world" scene, the "Under the sea" scene was really endearing and the photo realistic animals made me giggle. The reprise of part of your world had me in tears, it was really well sung and acted. The desire and urge she portrayed was so sincere that she was almost shaking. Like a primal instinct that nobody in the world could stop. Very impressive.

I especially appreciated the scenes between her and king Triton, very intense and emotional and I love the extra dialogue and backstory details. Some of their scenes together had me in tears too.

What also was very lovely was the romance and meetings between Ariel and Eric, it was just very charming and well done. Added little moments that I appreciated. The scene "Kiss the girl" was such a beautiful sincere moment, which caught me by surprise. I never really had a particular interest in that scene. But it felt so sincere and beautiful, like the whole world was good at that moment, maybe a part of it was also the nostalgia, but it was just very peaceful, wholesome and well acted and the song was much more beautifully arranged than the original version. It felt real.

I really began to root for Ariel and Eric here and was getting into the story. I generally liked the scenes on land more than the scenes under water. I also liked the portrayal of Ursula (except for a few added, too modern and popular lines), and she sang "poor unfortunate souls" quite well. I also liked the character of Vanessa.

The final few scenes between Ariel and Triton had me in tears. I have never cried or gotten even slightly emotional with any of the Disney remakes before. But the tears were gone soon when there was no ending music and a very cheap version of "Under the sea" was played during the end titles. Also there are 3 new songs, one for Eric, one for Scuttle and one for Ariel. All 3 are terrible. They pull the film down quite a bit. It feels like they are written by non-professionals.

In my opinion the film was enjoyable overall, with 4 emotional moments, a few funny and endearing moments but also many not so enjoyable moments. All in all, I think these kind of remakes are enjoyable to watch once, but will never live up to the quality, class, basically to the legend that the original animated film is.

Just seen The Little Mermaid. It opens with a nod to the story’s origin and some stunning underwater and above water shots. Then we get Halle’s stunning Part of your World.

Then Prince Eric gets a new I Want song but for me it was nowhere near as good as Ariel’s and visually it seemed rushed and a bit bland. I’m not sure that it came at the right point in the story. Maybe his song would have been better when he was choosing between Ariel and Vanessa. Jonah, the actor who plays Prince Eric, has a way of showing love in a deep, meaningful way and his friendship with Halle in real life came through on screen to produce some really beautiful moments.

I thought Javier Bardem was great as King Triton. They could have cast so many people as Ursula and they would have all been wonderful. They went for Melissa McCarthy who was clearly having fun with it and struck a good balance between being evil and making you feel that there’s more to Ursula than just a villain. And she really acted Poor Unfortunate Souls for all it was worth.

I also really enjoyed Daveed’s Under the Sea; again because he acted every line and made it his own. The visuals that accompany the song sold me on the beauty of the sea but there were no visuals to suggest the threats above the water; so I felt like the song’s meaning was a bit lost. Kiss the Girl, however, was perfectly shot and delivered.

As the seagull who thinks she knows humans but doesn’t, Awkwafina does a great job with her new comedy song Scuttlebutt. But editing it out in favour of a shorter running time might have been a better option.

At 2 hours and 15 mins, the film is too long and by the time it got to the final battle I just wanted it to be wrapped up. However, you must see it for Halle’s Ariel, the chemistry between her and Jonah, plus the performances of Melissa McCarthy and Daveed Diggs.

Saw it tonight and while it's not better than the original film, it's still enjoyable. The stars of the films are Halley Bailey, Melissa McCarthy and Daveed Diggs who bring so much when they are on screen, the sequences underwater were good but the scenes on land were surprisingly better because the Kingdom felt like a real living place and not CGI.

The only real weaknesses were Flounder and Triton which I don't blame the performer for but Flounder is restricted by being a fish so can't do much once they get to the land scenes and Triton came across as fairly cold as a character.

Overall I think this is one of the better Disney live action remakes, I do want to see Snow White next year and interested what they plan to do with it.