Finally, after many years of waiting, the Disney live-action remake of animated classic “The Little Mermaid” has been released.

This movie had already created a lot of controversy with the decision to diversify the character of Ariel by casting African American singer/actress Halle Bailey. Despite the controversy, the film has done a great job in the box office on opening weekend, even surpassing the original with a whopping $250 million, with the cartoon only making $211 million.

If you aren’t familiar with the story of “The Little Mermaid,” it’s about a young mermaid, Ariel, who’s entranced by the ways of the human world. She collects lost trinkets in the ocean that humans have disposed of, only making her wonder more about the shore above. Ariel’s father, King Triton, is aware of her fascination with human culture, and warns her sternly about the dangers it entails. On a stormy night, a royal ship with a prince named Eric is rowdy with celebration, only to be met by the ship catching fire due to complications of crashing into a rock because of the weather conditions. Ariel had been watching the ship out of curiosity of the humans on board. In the aftermath of the ship crash, Ariel saves Eric, who went overboard, by pulling him to the shoreline, singing her iconic melody to wake him. When Triton finds out about Ariel’s interaction, he furiously destroys her cavern of objects, causing her to seek out the sea witch Ursula. Ursula agrees that if Ariel gives her voice, she will be given legs for three days, and if by sunset on the third day Prince Eric had kissed her, she would remain human. If not kissed, then she would return as a mermaid and belong to Ursula forever.

This review will contain spoilers for the 2023 rendition, so if you don’t want spoilers, turn away now.

To start, the visuals for this movie were great for a film that wasn’t necessarily trying to have intricate special effects as the main focus. Underwater is always something that’s more tricky and they did a nice job with it. The realism and hair flow from all of the mermaids was pleasing to look at. One scene in particular that was visually a lot of fun was the musical number “Under The Sea,” sung by crab sidekick Sebastian, trying to convince Ariel that it’s “better down where it’s wetter.” This musical number had lots of colorful sea creatures scattered about dancing. Much of the choreography for the fish was symmetrical, making it feel like an actual performance and kept your attention on the subject of the song, which was Ariel herself. Another visually nice scene-setter was the black-light effect they gave for Ursula’s cave. Ursula is more of a theatrical dark villain, so giving her a dark glowing habitat to match just made sense. 

Other than the controversy about Ariel’s race, there was more concern about the shade of red chosen for her hair. The end result for Ariel’s hair was auburn locks with some loose pieces in between. These colors suited Bailey better than a bold red would have. The hair color looked amazing against her skin tone and the little bits of red were highlighted without clashing against her outfits and features. Hair stylist Camille Friend said in an interview with The Credits that “Well, no matter what character I design, I start looking at a couple of things, including their facial shape, eye color, skin tone, and the undertone in their skin. What’s going to look best on them? If you design a character and it doesn’t look good on your actor, you’ve failed anyway. That’s why we decided to do more of a mix of gold and ginger or an orange kind of red, which looked beautiful on Halle’s skin. All of those things went into the design process and working with Peter and Colleen.” This is impressive to take into consideration, and it paid off. 

Prince Eric was incorporated further as a character in this movie. He was even given a new track, “Wild Uncharted Waters,” which is a song where he expresses his longing for adventure. It was really refreshing to have an expansion of Eric’s character as a prince because audiences don’t get to see that often in Disney movies, making him more human and even more likable.

An added scene I thought was important to see was when Ariel and Eric rode down to the beach. Here, Ariel  distances her self from Eric and wanders off on her own, seeing all the things she has dreamed about while watching humans. Whether that’s brushing her hair with a dinglehopper, or eating a flower. This scene is important because it shows how Ariel has always yearned for life on land, and love is not something she only feels for Eric but for humanization too. Ariel still has her own dreams in this movie. 

For the things that could have used work, I would start with the appearance of Ursula. Her makeup looks horrendous, not resembling the original well at all. Her eyebrows were uneven, the eye shadow was splotchy, it was overall lacking detail and underwhelming; a professional should not have claimed it as their own. The next thing that rubbed me the wrong way was Ariel’s revival back on land. In the original, Ariel submerges from the ocean water in a sparkling victory dress to find Eric lying on the shore. In the 2023 remake, Ariel remained in the same blue dress, which was pretty, but not exciting when she wore it the entire three days. She put the same dress back on when Triton gives her legs back. It could have been a beautiful moment but it remained a let down. The last thing that was annoying was the casting of seagull Scuttle played by actress Awkwafina: Awkwafina is incredibly annoying and it will be left at that. 

Overall, as a movie I would give it a 4 out of 5. I thought the singing and performance by Halle Bailey was incredible and she embodied the character of Ariel perfectly. I would recommend this movie to anyone because it’s fun with moving messages and songs. Race does not affect Ariel or her character; the only thing it did was create more of an impact for young children who now have someone to look up to that may look like them.