Hi everyone, it's been ages since I had written my last review! Anyway, today I am going to be writing the Little Mermaid review and what my younger brother name Prasert and I felt about this 2023 live action reboot!

The Storyline

While the majority of the story is the same, however there are a number of changes I felt that it filled the plot hole of the 1989 film to which we all grew up with. Like we get to see the backstory of Triton and Ursula relationship as siblings, which was the original idea for the 1989 animated film.
Prasert and I were surprised to see Eric's mother for the fist time and she's black too. My assumption is that Eric was actually adopted as a baby and that his adopted father sadly passed away prior to the events of the film, his relationship with his mother is very similar to Prince Kit's relationship with this father in Disney's 2015 live action film, Cinderella.
I was disappointed that the Crash the Wedding scene was rushed and not very comedic enough for the film, but on the other hand, I guess that it could be shorten in the interest of time constraint. The same applies for Chef Louis and his signature song, Les Poissons which was excluded from the film itself.
During the Destruction of the Grotto, it's portrayed very differently, in the animated film, Ariel finds Eric's statue that landed in her grotto and she's jumping with joy until it was short-lived when her father, King Triton arrived after Sebastian was being pressured to blurt the secret out and destroyed everything, but in this reboot, it was less scary and very short.
Finally, I love how they also included Hans Christian Anderson's quote at the prologue, this was done as a tribute to the author who penned both The Little Mermaid and The Snow Queen, the latter would become the basis of Disney's Frozen!

The Characters

Ariel is played by African-American actress and singer, Halle Bailey in her very first Disney film. I was really amazed by the character developments of Ariel in this live-action film. Especially when she came to confront Vanessa moments before the film's climax, unlike her animated counterpart.
At least she has more screen time and her character is very bold and has more courage as well. To which I salute the producers for giving Ariel more character developments!
Sebastian remains the same as his animated counterpart, despite the fact that he looks like Mr Krab from Spongebob Squarepants!
Flounder looks the same as well, except he's skinner than his animated counterpart.
King Triton is very stern in this reboot, but at least he's not hotheaded like his cartoon version. He creeps me out during the Destruction of the Grotto!
Unlike his animated counterpart, Scuttle is changed into a woman and can dives into the water. Her mannerisms is very much like a tomboy and she sounds a bit like Mulan when she joined the army! Despite this, she's hilarious and her singing is WAY better than her cartoon version!
Like Ariel, Prince Eric also went through character developments and his singing voice sounds like Michael Ball, the singer who originated Marius Pontmercy in Les Miserables! An observation that Prasert pointed it out during his song after his mother tells him to forget about Ariel, who was known as the mysterious girl at this point of the story.
Finally, Ursula is another character that when through some changes as well. Her tentacles also have minds of their own when looking for the potion when she's about to transform into Vanessa, unfortunately her death is scarier than the animated one and it scarred me to this very day. Melissa McCarthy played Ursula in this reboot and her singing blew me away, especially with her rendition of Poor Unfortunate Souls! Initially, I thought Queen Latifah would play her considering that she played her in the 2019 The Little Mermaid live.

Music & Songs

We get to hear a number of familiar songs like Part Of Your World, Poor Unfortunate Souls, Kiss The Girl and Under The Sea. Alan Menken was asked to write new songs specially for this reboot with the help of lyricist Lin Manuel Miranda, who was also the composer of Disney's Moana.
Plus, Halle's voice sounds a bit like Ariana Grande when she sang part Of Your World, and she gave a very powerful rendition of Part Of Your World! She's breathless.
The new songs gave both Ariel and Eric character developments! Initially, I thought that the film was going to take songs from the short-lived musical. But I was wrong in the end!

Visualisation

The visualisations and the special effects played a very dominant role in this reboot, and it reminded me of Avatar: The Way Of Water due how similar the visualisation and the ambience of the film itself!

Part Of Your World

So, there you have it! My review on this 2023 live action reboot based on the 1989 animated film that we all grew up with. If you want me to do a comparison of both the 1989 and 2023 versions, please let me know in the comments section below.