THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
It’s crazy when you realize when you look for love, it can find you in the most unexplainable yet incredible manner.
PLOT
Based on the titular fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid follows Princess Ariel (Jodi Benson) who lives in the underwater kingdom of Atlantica with her father King Triton (Kenneth Mars). Despite his warnings to be distant from humans, she always remains fascinated with the surface world. The only friends who support her are a fish named Flounder (Jason Marin) and a seagull named Scuttle (Buddy Hackett) who gives incorrect information of the world above her. One night, she watches from afar, with Flounder and Triton’s crab adviser Sebastian (Samuel E Wright), a birthday celebration of the human prince Eric. It does become love at first sight for the princess and her closest encounter becomes reality when she saves him from a shipwreck. When she returns to the sea, she becomes only more determined to be part of the human world. Sebastian would inadvertently tell Triton what she did, leading the king to destroy his daughter’s grotto filled with human artifacts. Heartbroken of what her father did, Ariel encounters two blue eels named Flotsam & Jetsam (Paddi Edwards) who belong to the sea witch Ursula. They take the mermaid to her, promising she can give what she wants. Ursula makes a deal with Ariel, granting her a human body in exchange for her voice. If she and Eric share true love’s kiss within three days, she can stay human, but will belong to Ursula if she fails. The second she gains human legs, Ariel races to the sea and hopes to convince Eric to love her like she loves him. Although she cannot speak and isn’t recognizing for saving his life, Eric becomes infatuated enough to invite Ariel to his castle. They almost kiss by the end of the second day, but are stealthily interrupted by Flotsam & Jetsam. Infuriated that the Princess almost succeeded, Ursula dawns the human disguise of Vanessa and uses Ariel’s voice to trick Eric she saved him. She also casts an enchantment to make him forget about the mermaid. When Ariel sees them quickly planning to get married, she becomes heartbroken upon discovery. However, Scuttle discovers Vanessa’s secret identity and warns his friend in order to stop the wedding. As he and Ariel board the wedding ship to stop the ceremony, Sebastian warns Triton of his daughter’s whereabouts. With unexpected help from Eric’s pet dog Max, Scuttle is able to take Vanessa’s necklace and break it. Once that happens, Ariel gets her voice back. However, she becomes a mermaid again whereas Vanessa becomes Ursula again and snatches the Princess back into the sea with her. Before she could decide what to do next, Triton arrives to save his daughter. Ursula tricks the king to surrender his authority of Atlantica in order to get Ariel out of her deal. As a result, he would become a polyp prisoner to the sea witch. With the king’s trident, she uses it to enlarge herself to monstrous proportion. Eric would end the conflict and stop Ursula from ruling the ocean by impaling her with his ship. With the sea witch dead, Triton and the other polyp prisoners become free and revert to their original forms. Realizing the love between Eric and Ariel have grown to be true within, he allows his daughter to be human permanently and approves of their marriage. The film would end with the prince and princess sailing away with their happily ever after. THOUGHTS
I was born fresh out of the end of one of Walt Disney's historic eras of animated films that was the Renaissance Era. As I grew up enjoying the films from the said era like The Lion King & Beauty and the Beast, it was easy to forget where exactly was the beginning. When I got around to this one, I basically loved it just as much as I loved the films that came afterwards. The animation is aging well and the music is equally delightful as past and present soundtracks Walt Disney has made for their films. This film has particularly grown to be another immortal hit for the brand because the writing/directing duo Ron Clements & Jon Musker share an exciting story that tells us the things that are meant to be will be as long as you keep believing in yourself. This bold feeling is captured through an unordinary yet lovable protagonist. We fall in love with Ariel because she has this bright spirit sparking her to headstrong as much as she can. It also sparks her imagination due to how her interest over the surface world never lessens. That straight up defines her song 'Part of Your World' because it's about exploring new opportunities which she does at every chance she takes. She was starstruck over Eric because she couldn't believe she encountered a human. The love for him would quickly become pure because he never really judged her actions and noticed her spirit. The fact she was winning him over when briefly voiceless only proves love doesn't always need words. Eric on the other hand was pretty interesting of a prince because he saw how there was more of an adventure for true love than the sails he boarded. He was starstruck in return when he met Ariel and his love for her became natural due to how she never saw him for the privileges he had, only for the heart he would show. The risks they took to be together proved that people gave to be able to prepare for sacrifices for the sake of love and how they can be worth it by the end of it. Since they both survived Ursula's wrath, this is a case where it was. While the love story this pair is what has us hooked, there were still other colorful characters that kept things interesting. It's pretty relatable to have overprotective parents and King Triton is easy to identify as just that. You want to hate on him that he went strict enough to the point of destroying Ariel's grotto, inadvertently leading her to meet Ursula. However, you can't say these feelings come from nowhere. His prejudice towards humans have to come from being in conflict with them before and can't take the risk of it happening again. Since he has seven daughters that include Ariel, he does his rightful devotion to protect them by selflessly surrendering his power. Once he saw Eric act the same, he finally understood not every human is terrible, rewarding her daughter with what she desired. Considering how things were rocky with her king of a father, it's a relief Ariel had friends to talk to of what troubles her deep down. Scuttle stood out for being the most eccentric of Ariel's friends. He may be innocently wrong with knowledge by mistaking a fork (dinglehopper) as a comb, but that doesn't mean he isn't smart due to having the opportunity to be more observant of humans in comparison to what mer-people are able to see. Flounder always had my attention because even though he is filled with anxiety, he remains loyal to Ariel throughout and it's not easy to have friends like that. It can get easy to hate on Sebastian when he started out putting his job over his personal feelings. But the more he saw how miserable Ariel was, he knew he had to do right by her. With his love for music, he proved exactly how care free he can be and it is through his music where he was able to get his message across. You can easily look at 'Under the Sea' as his way to sway Ariel to ignore the surface world, but it also becomes a smart allegory to appreciate what you already have. It definitely comes from his heart since he doesn't like the surface and loves everything about the oceanic environment. 'Kiss the Girl' was another sweet song because while it shows Sebastian do his best in encouraging the two leads to make a move, it's also accurate on expressing the feeling for others to express how they feel before it's too late. Ariel's friends were definitely unsung heroes in their own way: Scuttle told Ariel who Vanessa really was, Flounder takes Ariel to the ship and Sebastian warned the king of his daughter's whereabouts. Had they not intervened the way they did during the climax, Eric would not have been able to defeat the sea witch. Speaking of which, I never thought there would be a villain to be so manipulative until witnessing Ursula. From the voice alone, Pat Carroll shows us exactly how wicked of a character she is and doesn't disappoint. Moment after moment, her lust for power drives her to deceive people however she can and it almost works. Her song 'Poor Unfortunate Souls' was definitely a banger in the villain's perspective because she's calling those that fell for her persuasion and was doing it again with Ariel. If that song didn't creep you out, seeing her get bigger likely would. Luckily, her reign of terror only lasted a minute before Eric killed her in graphic fashion. This movie was generally impressive, but there were a few things that bothered me as I re watched it many times in my childhood. For example, why didn’t Sebastian tell the king Ariel was missing rehearsals? If he really wanted the recital to go well, he should’ve said what was going on. That was harder to believe than him surviving the wrath of the chef. We all know Ariel can be carefree due to how interested she grew over the human world, but she didn’t have to risk her life over a fork. You really think she would want that on a tombstone to be eaten by a shark over a fork? I wouldn’t think so. Also, how come Flounder didn't fit through the port hole when Ariel fit just fine? That's kinda pointless tension if you ask me. On top of that, why didn’t she write her name on the sand when she met Eric? We know she can write since she signed her signature when meeting Ursula, so it’s not like it wasn’t an option. That would’ve saved a lot of trouble had she done that. And who the hell helped Flounder get the statue into the grotto? Yeah he’s a good friend for making it happen, but he’s still a small fish in comparison. If he got mammals like whales or dolphins to help him, it shouldn’t be hard to clarify. Also, it’s understandable for Triton for wanting to protect Ariel, but why hasn’t he set up proper security? He should know there has to be more suitable guards in comparison to Sebastian. Moving on, why would Eric's advisor Grimsby bring the statue onto the ship? That is asking for it to be lost to sea which is exactly what happens. I then wonder why would Sebastian & Flounder struggle to stay above the waves? They don't have to do that since they're creatures capable of ducking under it. You know guys I don't like continuity errors, so consider me very confused when Scuttle finds fabric in one shot that was nowhere near him in the prior frames. And did Ariel really eat fish with Eric? The chef was cooking fish and since she couldn't speak at the time, you can't say she asked for something else. I'm always smiling when 'Kiss the Girl' plays but two things bother me a whole lot when I look back at it: How does Eric hear Sebastian say Ariel's name and not hear him sing? And how did none of the fish singing spot Flotsam & Jetsam interfere? Sebastian & Flounder know what they look like, so it's not like they wouldn't spot them. Other than that, this one is still fun to watch. In short, The Little Mermaid is an animated gem for having us believe we can set our own paths for what we want. If you seek adventure, this’ll do the trick.
Comments