With its official release date just around the corner, the live-action remake of the 1989 Disney classic The Little Mermaid hasn’t had the easiest process to get here. The problems started, as they often do, with racism: the star of the film — Halle Bailey — is black, and apparently it’s impossible for a half-human invented creature to have any melanin. But, beyond that, plenty of other fans were worried the remake would suffer from the same issues as many other Disney live-action films that have come out in recent years, and the early reviews seem to back this up, as does its current rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
While Rotten Tomatoes isn’t the be-all-end-all of criticism (Happy Gilmore, a verifiable classic, currently has a middling rating of 62 percent by critics, while self-indulgent tripe like La La Land is in the nineties), it is a decent predictor of how a movie will be perceived by the general public, and The Little Mermaid is currently languishing at a distinctly average 70 percent on the famous tomatometer. This is also lower than the reviled 2020 remake of Mulan, which says a lot about how badly it’s being received.
Mulan was panned for its wooden writing, controversial production in areas of China where ethnic cleansing was taking place, and having a distinctly undiverse crew despite it being set in a non-white country. While there was no doubt it was an aesthetic achievement, as far as films go it didn’t live anywhere near up to the iconic, inspiring original — something we seem to be saying a lot when it comes to Disney and its forcing of live-action remakes on us.
Of course, audience and critical opinions don’t always align, so the middling early review mark on the famous film website for The Little Mermaid isn’t a sure sign that audiences won’t enjoy the latest Disney retelling of one of its classic IPs. However, the fact it’s already rated lower than 7 other live-action remakes (including the near unbearable Beauty and the Beast) is not a good sign of things to come. Some would even argue it’s pretty damning, and practically impossible to come back from.
One thing fans of Disney and the new film can take heart from is the fact that Bailey’s performance is already being universally acclaimed. By all accounts, her acting is sparkling, and her singing voice is captivating and sweet, which is exactly what people want in Ariel. So, at least we can say the racists were wrong, which is always a nice thing to be able to mention, even if it’s almost always true and shouldn’t need to be repeated. But, then again, we live in the world we do, so it does have to be affirmed every time.
The general naysayers, however, might have had a point. While Bailey appears to have done really well, not all of the musical moments seem to be hitting the right notes, and although reviews are more positive than expected, box office receipts are likely to be incredibly low. There’s also the fact that the film just seems to be a shallow reshoot of the original, while also somehow being nearly an hour longer, which is never a good mixture of attritbutes. One critic on RT said:
“‘The Little Mermaid’ — a beloved 83-minute fairy tale transformed into a strained 135-minute pale imitation where the titular sea nymph doesn’t get her Faustian legs until a full hour into the proceedings.”
So, not the most positive review. Yet, Disney still persists with updating its library with live-action remakes of its animated classics, and have had a slew come out recently. Peter Pan & Wendy has only been available to watch for a few weeks but was immediately panned by critics and audiences, and like The Little Mermaid has a very average RT score. And there’s plenty more to come, some of which seem like they could be exciting, but many of which are likely to fall flat. Snow White is about a year away, and despite being written by the brilliant Greta Gerwig and starring Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot, there is still the fear it will repeat the same mistakes most Disney live-action remakes have: a lack of originality, a lack of believability thanks to aesthetic limitations, and some poor, poor writing.
It doesn’t seem to even matter if an adaptation is panned for Disney, either — it seems to truly believe that live-action and nothing else is the future. The company is persisting with The Lion King 2, even though the remake managed to make even Donald Glover seem average (a tough task indeed) — although that at least did incredibly well at the box office, so from a business perspective there is some reason for ploughing on.
And then there’s the fact that live versions of Lilo & Stitch, Hercules, and Bambi are all in development, even though Disney has only managed to get the formula right a couple of times so far (with The Jungle Book and Cinderella, although some others, like Pete’s Dragon, are good enough movies, albeit not the most amazing watches). Even if you’re no fan of the House of Mouse, it is a little sad to see it forging ahead with something that could almost be seen as denigrating its greatest, most iconic achievements, just because it knows the money will come rolling in if it does so.
Disney may be suffering from a lack of ideas, but it’s not like it doesn’t have the money or talent to produce films that are actually good, instead of just being aggressively fine. However, like most large business – safety, consistency, and guaranteed box office returns will always beat out creativity and boundary-pushing, even if it’s in a company so rich it can afford to take on the U.S. government in court and win. So, it seems we’re going to be stuck with the live-action obsession for a while longer, even as the films start to alienate one of the most passionate fanbases of all time. How bad will it get? Only time will tell.