The Little Mermaid (2023)
★★★
The Little Mermaid is one of the biggest surprises for me in 2023. Not so much because it's the best movie in the world, but because it is actually good. Seeing the trailers and lead up to this film gave me no desire to see this reimagining of the animated film that I grew up with. I'm still not sure how I felt about all the undersea special effects. They are both impressive and distracting, but thankfully the film was very well cast, so you become a little bit more comfortable with it all. I still get confused by why some fish talk and others don't, but I digress.
Halle Bailey lights up the screen and I was shocked by how good of a Ursula Melissa McCarthy made. I found myself more invested into the story once we got out of the water and even warmed up to the antics of Sebastian (Daveed Diggs) and Scuttle (Awkwafina). I also forget how much Eric is in this story and Jonah Hauer-King really fills the character's shoes well.
I'm not a big fan of these live-action remakes. The big question is always, "Why?" when the original can stand on its own. I know that the answer is money, but I enjoyed this movie enough that I thought that it could stand on its own. Therefore, I couldn't help but wonder if I would hold this film higher if it wasn't an almost paint-by-the-number retelling of the animated film. At least I felt like those involved were trying to make it feel as original as possible, and that shines through in overall, positive ways.
