Alexander Larman

Why The Little Mermaid is bad news for cinema

Its success will fuel the regrettable trend for Disney live-action remakes

  • From Spectator Life
Halle Bailey in Disney's The Little Mermaid [Alamy]

It is disappointing to learn that, after critics and cynical audiences everywhere had sharpened their fish knives in the expectation of the new live-action Little Mermaid film being a catastrophic disaster, early reviews have suggested that it is… fine. It attracted a great deal of attention, and some criticism, for the casting of the black singer-actress Halle Bailey in the lead role of Ariel, on the grounds that sea-dwelling mermaids must, after all, be white-skinned redheads, as she was in the seminal 1989 animated film. Yet Bailey’s performance has been universally acclaimed, with her delivery of ‘Part of Your World’ being singled out for particular praise.

The reason why so many are disappointed that we do not have a Cats­­-level disaster on our hands is twofold. Firstly, the trailers promised a truly terrible film, complete with frightening, oddly andromorphic crabs. That the results are merely acceptable has produced a reaction in connoisseurs of bad movies a little like sitting down for a five-course feast of lobster and being served pickled herring in its stead. Secondly, and more importantly for the future of cinema, if The Little Mermaid is a success at the box office, the recent, regrettable trend for Disney live-action adaptations of their animated classics will continue unabated.

With the exception of the surprisingly excellent (and pleasingly dark) Cruella, the recent stream of Disney remakes has been remarkably undistinguished cinematically. There were the Tim Burton travesties of Dumbo and Alice in Wonderland and Jon Favreau pointlessly remaking a live-action Lion King with uncanny photorealistic talking lions. There was also, of all people, Guy Ritchie directing a pre-slap Will Smith as the Genie in Aladdin, and conspicuously failing to erase memories of the late, great Robin Williams in the process. The new vogue for trying to extract a tenner from audiences before the results slide on to Disney+ has been wholly depressing. Contemporary Hollywood prizes the dread IP (intellectual property) above all else, and what better way of offering viewers something tried and tested than a remake of an animated film that they’ll have seen a hundred times before?

The prospect of hundreds of millions of dollars being wasted on new versions of HerculesSnow White and The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a deeply miserable one

Of course, there are some additions and spins on the material.

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