Halle Bailey is charismatic in bland Little Mermaid remake — review

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For the underwater characters in Disney re-do The Little Mermaid, dry land is discussed with fear. The sense of peril may not be misplaced. Not only is bashing Disney still central to the political ambitions of Florida governor Ron DeSantis, implausibly, this wilfully bland musical has been snared in the culture war since the 2019 casting of Halle Bailey as half-fish heroine Ariel.

In brief, Bailey is black, and the announcement of her role as star led to much grim online vitriol around the historically accurate ethnicity of a mermaid. (Strikingly, few commenters also demanded the new film be made in Danish, in line with Hans Christian Andersen’s original story.) 

Bailey is a charming and charismatic presence. She nails the broad strokes, the high notes and even adds nuance. Casting her is the smartest call in a movie director Rob Marshall otherwise brings home with grinding efficiency, the latest in a string of timid live-action remakes of animated Disney IP. The CG animation keeping the actors company is flawless but boring, for all the fleeting devilry of Melissa McCarthy as a tentacled villainess and the sight of Javier Bardem as King Triton, arriving in a vortex of sprats.

Bardem keeps his Spanish accent; Sebastian the talking crab is rendered by actor Daveed Diggs as ambiguously Jamaican. The marine geography is now made explicit, the story said to be taking place between the Caribbean islands and the coast of Colombia. A batch of new tunes come from Lin-Manuel Miranda. It isn’t work he will be remembered for, though it would take effort to dislike “The Scuttlebutt”, an infectious piece of salsa-hop sung by Awkwafina in the guise of a needy seagull.

But the core of the 1989 animation remains in place, the story still centred on star-cross’d passion between Ariel and Jonah Hauer-King’s earnestly human Prince Eric. The name recalls Monty Python, but that doesn’t stop Eric loudly announcing his inclusive bona fides. “I’m trying to reach out to other cultures so we don’t get left behind!” he frowns, one of many variations on the theme. If DeSantis knew what a joke was he’d be tickled, the whole character almost reading as a Trojan horse send-up of Disney chief executive Bob Iger. Little is helped by Hauer-King, whose line readings suggest having just had a medicine ball bounced off his head. Frankly, this Ariel could do better.

★★★☆☆

In cinemas from May 26