Disney takes you back under the sea with “The Little Mermaid,” the latest of their photo-realistic, live action remakes of classic animated movies. Based on the 1837 Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name, the new film places the titular mermaid in an undersea world that brings to mind your work computer’s aquarium screensaver.
Singer-songwriter and actress Halle Bailey stars as Ariel, the mermaid daughter of the Kingdom of Atlantica’s ruler King Triton (Javier Bardem). She is a free spirit, fascinated by the human world. Unlike his daughter, the overprotective King is no fan of humans and has forbidden her from visiting the “above world.”
But, like the song says, she “wants to be where the people are,” despite her father’s warnings. “I want to see them dancing,” she sings. “Walking around on those… what do you call them? Oh feet!”
Her dry land dreams are fulfilled when she rescues the human Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) from drowning. She is immediately smitten, and determined to live above sea level.
“This obsession with humans has got to stop,” scolds King Triton.
“I just want to know more about them,” she says.
Following her heart, Ariel makes a deal with Ursula (Melissa McCarthy), an evil sea witch with glow-in-the-dark phosphorescence tentacles, who grants the mermaid’s wish to be with Eric in trade for her “siren song,” i.e. her voice.
“Here’s the deal,” she says. “I’ll whip up a little potion to make you human for three days. Before the sun sets on the third day, you and Princey must share a kiss, and not just any kiss. The kiss of true love. If you do, you will remain human permanently. But if you don’t, you’ll turn back into a mermaid and you belong to me.”
Ursula’s “premium package” comes at a high cost, however. A steep price tag that could cost King Triton his crown and Ariel her life.
You can’t shake the feeling, while watching the new “The Little Mermaid,” that it is competing with itself.
The 2023 photo-realistic animation is very good, presenting beautiful, fluid images, buoyed by theatrical flourishes from director Rob Marshall and strong performances from Halle Bailey and Melissa McCarthy. The new songs, by Alan Menken and Lin-Manuel Miranda, are good too, particularly the fun “Scuttlebutt.”
But it feels like something is missing. That’s the magic that made the ink and paint “Little Mermaid” an enduring classic.
There is plenty of razzmatazz. Marshall, a veteran of big musical extravaganzas like “Chicago” and “Into the Woods,” is at his best when applying a Broadway style gloss to the musical numbers. “Under the Sea,” a holdover from the first film, is a knockout. The psychedelic underwater cinematography will give your eyeballs a workout and it has a good beat and you can dance to it.
But for every Ziegfeld Follies style dancing sea slug number—super cool—there is yet another movie-stopping scene of Ursula’s endless exposition where she explains her nefarious plot or a padded action scene. Those slow spots give the storytelling a choppiness that would capsize a lesser vessel but Bailey’s strong, emotional vocals and star-making performance coupled with a fun turn from Daveed Diggs as the “educated crustation” Sebastian keep the ship from sinking.
“The Little Mermaid’s” message of a young person giving up their voice so they could be heard, is unchanged, and is still powerful, but feels waterlogged by comparison to the original.
Richard joins Ryan Doyle and Jay Michaels of the NewsTalk 1010 afternoon show to talk about the history of the Ernest Hemingway Daiquiri, how Rotten Tomatoes works and whether “Luca” on Disney+ is worth your time.
Set on the Italian Riviera, “Luca,” the new film from animation giants Pixar and now streaming on Disney+, is a fantasy story about sea monsters with a beating, human heart.
Jacob Tremblay is 13-year-old Luca Paguro, a shy sea monster with a typical teenager’s curiosity. When he discovers items that have floated down from the surface he wonders what the world outside the sea has to offer. Despite the stories his parents, Daniela (Maya Rudolph) and Lorenzo (Jim Gaffigan), have told him of fisherman and the horrors of dry land, his free-spirited best friend Alberto Scorfano (Jack Dylan Grazer) has been above the water line and convinces the shy Luca to check out the terra firma,
On land, Luca and Alberto, who look like a cross between the Creature from the Black Lagoon and Sigmund Ooze of 1970s Saturday morning television fame, transform from underwater creatures to human form. Blending in, they explore the seaside town of Portorosso, discovering the pleasures of pasta, gelato and most of all, the Vespa. The town bully Ercole Visconti (Saverio Raimondo) sets his sights on them but a young girl, Giulia Marcovaldo (Emma Berman) befriends them and has an idea that may help them get their very own Vespa.
“Luca” is a fanciful coming of age story. The very specific story of sea monsters who aspire for more in their lives, has universal messages about find commonalities not differences, anti-bullying and never giving up. The morals are a bit on the nose—”Some people will never accept him, and never will, but he seems to be able to find the good ones.”—but they are kept afloat with imaginative animation and a simple story that zips along.
At its cold-blooded little heart though, “Luca” is about friendship. The kind of bond that happens between kids who are just figuring out the world and its possibilities. Director Enrico Casarosa, who directed Pixar’s 2011 Oscar nominated short “La Luna,” aided by fun voice work from Tremblay and Grazer, captures the youthful exuberance needed to make the story work.
“Luca” doesn’t have the emotional resonance of classic era Pixar—think “Up,” “WALL-E” and “Ratatouille”—but what it lacks in gut punch sentiment, it makes up for in imagination, action and the good-natured look at finding a place to belong, above and below sea level.
Raunchy yet innocent. Naïve but course. Whichever you want to say it “Good Boys” is a “Superbad” riff on one of life’s rites of passage. Starring Jacob Tremblay, Keith L. Williams and Brady Noon, none of whom are old enough to buy a ticket to see their own movie, it’s an R-rated but sweet film that has more going for it than the novelty of foul-mouthed preteens.
It all begins with a kiss. Or at last the promise of a kiss. Sixth-grader Max (Tremblay) has been invited to his first kissing party, where he has plan to plant one on his crush Brixlee (Millie Davis). “Tonight is our first middle school party. There’s going to be girls there. You know what that means?”
Trouble is, he’s never actually spoken to her or kissed a girl. His pals Lucas (Williams) and Thor (Noon), the Beanbag Boys, can’t offer any practical advice in that regard but are game to help their friend get some smooching experience. “We need to see real people kissing. That’s the only way we’ll learn what we’re doing!”
Googling porn doesn’t illuminate anything. “They didn’t even kiss!” “Not on the mouth, anyway!” They use Max’s dad’s (Will Forte) drone to try and spy on the girls next door (Midori Frances and Molly Gordon) but they catch on before the boys learn anything useful. Desperate for information the hormonal hombres hit the road—literally, dodging traffic on a bustling six lane highway—that sees them encounter a sex doll they assume is a CPR practice dummy, vitamins that are actually MDMD and a frat house filled with bros. “You let us run around with drugs, fight with frat guys, and lock a cop in a convenient store with what I now suspect is a d*ldo,” Lucas says to Max.
“Good Boys” is best summed up by its rough ‘n ready Red Band trailer. The kids swear, a lot—Art Linklater would be shocked by the potty mouths on these darned kids—and find themselves in adult situations that often veer over into slapstick, and yet, there’s a real sweetness to the proceedings. They are at that very specific time in life between childhood and adolescence, just on the cusp of not wanting to put away childish things but speeding toward a hormonal future they don’t quite yet understand. That leads to very funny misunderstandings and an escalating series of events.
At its raunchy little heart, however, “Good Boys” is about growing up and growing apart. The Beanbag Boys may think they’ll be friends forever, but as the girls next door explain, they’re probably really only friends because they live close together, have parents who are friends and are in the same class. It’s a bittersweet realization in a movie that succeeds because of the chemistry between the three leads.
I have a few people to thank today! Firstly, Sunday night I hosted the Facebook Fishbowl Lounge at the Canadian Screen Awards red carpet. Really fun. Thanks to Marc Dinsdale for shooting and posting everything we did and thanks to everyone who stopped bvy the booth to answer questions from my Facebook Random Question Generator. It was a fun way to get things started last night.
Then I moved on to host the Press Room. We had great guests down there and I’d like to offer thanks to everyone who asked questions.
Imagine if your worldview only extended ten feet in all directions, with a skylight as your only view into the world beyond your walls. That’s the situation Jack (Jacob Tremblay), the five-year-old son of Ma (Brie Larson) finds himself in. He wakes up every morning to greet the only things he knows to be real. “Hello table,” he says. “Hello sink, hello bathtub.” A backyard is something he’s only ever seen on television and when he asks, “Where do we go when we dream?” Ma says, “Nowhere, we’re always here.”
Based on Emma Donoghue’s Man Booker Prize-shortlisted novel of he same name, “Room” dramatizes the inner-dialogue of the book, walking us through the claustrophobic story of a woman abducted by an abuser she calls Old Nick (Sean Bridgers). He locks her away in a small soundproof shed for seven years, making regular conjugal visits, the result of which is Jack, a sweet natured boy born into captivity.
Days after celebrating Jack’s fifth birthday, Ma tells him he’s old enough now to help her fool Old Nick and possibly escape their prison. “I want to be four again,” he says, but agrees to go along with the audacious plan. If the plan works they will be free again, but what will life beyond their ten-foot-by-ten-foot box be like?
“Room’s” first hour is claustrophobic, but when Ma and Jack are onscreen together, filled with warmth. They have a bond that goes beyond the usual mother-son connection—she’s the only person Jack has ever communicated with—and the film does a good job at fleshing out their relationship. The connection between them turns the film into a story of a mother’s love rather than a ripped-from-the-headlines tale of abduction and abuse.
The film’s second half reveals the effects of Old Nick’s long term abuse, the post traumatic stress of seven years of subverting yourself to the whims of a captor. The two halves of the story are bound by remarkable performances from Larson and Tremblay. Larson is vulnerable and fierce, simultaneously, doing what she must to protect and raise her child. Similarly Tremblay’s performance is modulated between temper tantrums, wonder and bewilderment as he learns about finding his place in a world that didn’t know he existed.
“Room” is a tearjerker that occasionally makes too much room for melodrama and on-the-money dialogue, but is captivatingly told nonetheless.
