I haven't really been a fan of Disney's recent live-action remakes of its most beloved animated titles — a practice that may make commercial sense, but feels increasingly like an artistic dead end. Even so, I tried to keep an open mind when I heard that
The Little Mermaid, one of my favorite movies in the Disney canon, was getting the do-over treatment.
This kind of retread may be unnecessary, but unnecessary doesn't have to mean unenjoyable. And with that brilliant Alan Menken score and those ingenious Howard Ashman lyrics — and yes, I can sing the whole thing from start to finish — really, how bad could it be?
The answer is: not that bad, but also not that good. Like a lot of its fellow Disney remakes, this
Little Mermaid too often feels like a dutiful cover version rather than an inspired reimagining.
But the characters who fare the worst this time around are probably Ariel's faithful critter friends. In the role of Scuttle, the raucous seagull, a little of
Awkwafina's goofball shtick goes a long way. And
Daveed Diggs, of
Hamilton fame, struggles to make an appealing sidekick out of Sebastian, the worrywart crab who tries to keep Ariel out of trouble. That has less to do with his acting and singing than with just how unappealing the character designs are. What made Sebastian and Ariel's fish friend Flounder so memorable in the original film was their glorious cartoonishness; here, they look creepy and dead-eyed.
