Feature movie review: The Little Mermaid (2023) 

• Walt Disney Pictures

For months now—ever since the first stills and clips from director Rob Marshall's remake of Disney's The Little Mermaid first started making the rounds—the punch line has been about darkness. The images, particularly those set in the undersea world of Ariel (Halle Bailey), Sebastian (Daveed Digs), Flounder (Jacob Tremblay) and the Sea King (Javier Bardem), felt leached of light and color. In an era when new interpretations of established properties have been all about the idea that you made things darker in order to have them taken more seriously, it seemed like a very bad sign. Was "gritty reboot" something literally anyone was asking for when it came to a story about singing, dancing aquatic life?

That notion feels particularly misguided when it comes to this specific property, which effectively created the template for the Disney animated renaissance of the 1990s. Lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken built their model for The Little Mermaid on the conventions of classic Broadway musicals: give your protagonist an "I want" song, make sure there's a "show-stopper," etc. First and foremost, the goal was to create joy. If your approach is one that worries more about how much light would really trickle down to the ocean floor, or how Flounder should look as a photorealistic fish, what space is left to create joy?

And so we get an interpretation of the 1989 Little Mermaid story—with the curious teenage mermaid Ariel rebelling against her father and longing to be human so she can be with Eric (Jonah Hauer-King), the human prince with whom she has fallen in love—steeped in brooding emotions. The Sea King sits on his throne fuming over Ariel's betrayal like a trident-wielding King Lear; Ariel must demonstrate genuine torment rather the whirlwind feelings of an adolescent. Yes, it's a step in the right direction to flesh out Eric as a character by giving him his own "I want" song—one of a few new tunes created by Menken and lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda—but it's not entirely necessary that the staging of the song makes it seem like he's about to hurl himself into the ocean due to the profundity of his angst.

Perhaps none of this would have felt so awkward, though, had this Little Mermaid committed itself fully to being its own thing, utterly separate from the legacy of its predecessor. But the script, credited to David Magee, takes nearly every memorable line and joke from Little Mermaid '89, to the point where anyone even vaguely familiar with the original is waiting for them. That's almost a cruel trick to play on these new cast members, who are being asked not to create distinctive versions of these characters, but to imitate the versions created nearly 40 years ago. When Melissa McCarthy as Ursula trots out "life's full of tough choices, innit?" or Diggs' Sebastian intones "somebody's got to nail that girl's fins to the floor," it plays less like homage than like karaoke.

That sensibility is perhaps even more notable when it comes to the beloved Ashman/Menken songs, which are—to put it as gently as possible—not served well. Bailey's interpretation of "Part of Your World" works best, earnestly sung and less dependent on surroundings, but most of the others are a complete mess. Nothing about "Under the Sea" succeeds when the idea of smiling fish at an actual rollicking party with actual musical instruments turns into an experiment in "what would it look like to have real-life sea stars do choreography;" "Kiss the Girl," leaving aside one's feelings about the misguided tweaking of the lyrics, similarly gets sapped of all the energy involved in seeing creatively-animated critters play sometimes-literally-with-wings wingmen to Ariel's romantic overtures. Whatever it is Marshall and company want to do with this story, the goal almost never feels like "what would make this moment most joyful?"

Volumes could be devoted to the odd choices Marshall, Magee and company make in changing the story, like making Ursula the Scar-like embittered sibling of the Sea King, or having Ariel not remember that she actually wants Eric to kiss her. Those, however, are almost forgivable considering the big picture that everyone involved is missing. For all the nostalgic fidelity devoted to re-creating songs, lines of dialogue and even the blocking of specific shots, this Little Mermaid carves out its own unique identity in the most ill-advised manner possible: It's just no damned fun. And that's darker than any frame of the film.