Hey guys welcome back to cine Pals I'm Achara Kirk and I just got back from a screening of The Little Mermaid the new live action 2023 version not to be confused with the classic 1980s animation honestly I went in just kind of I didn't want to get my hopes up too high is the truth because I've been disappointed in the past with the live action animations like with Mulan it looked good in the trailer and then watched the movie and was like ah didn't quite hit it same with Aladdin I didn't love it and that was one of my favorite cartoons growing up and so with the Little Mermaid having its day in the sun if you will with the live.
Action adaptation I was a little bit like well I'm being sold on the teasers and the trailers right now it's looking really interesting and I'm excited but I'm just trying to cap that excitement because I just don't want to be disappointed honestly I wasn't if I'm being real I wonder if my Nostalgia was kind of carrying me a lot of the way there my love for the music for the songs for the characters that were such a huge part of my childhood I don't know how much of that kind of tipped it over the edge for me but I had a smile on my face the entire time they clearly picked some some great people especially.
Hallie Bailey as The Little Mermaid as Ariel obviously that's the most important character like you have to get her right and they really did because I thought that first of all her singing voice is amazingly beautiful she sang all the songs so so well but more importantly she really captured the innocence and the gutsy bravery of Ariel and I thought that she was so good and she was just so captivating to watch the entire time and another standout and I think some people might even argue that she was a character that really stole the show or an actor that really stole the show.
But Melissa McCarthy as Ursula was amazing she was really really having fun with the character and just like going all out with like the body language with the voice and everything and just the evilness of the character she was so so so entertaining to watch and then other standouts for me were actually David Diggs as Sebastian he was great so so so funny like he had a lot of the funniest lines in the movie and yeah I mean I love Sebastian in the cartoon but he did a fantastic job as Sebastian in the movie and of course I always love a little bit of Aquafina and she was in this as well as Scuttle and I really really enjoyed her as well and some of the comedic banter between her and Sebastian so so funny overall really really enjoyed it and just like the look of it as well right we saw from the trailers that they they were really going for like a very beautiful colorful Underwater World.
I think they really delivered because as soon as we were kind of going into the water and everything like that I was just so fascinated and like I don't know if that's just because I am a person who really enjoys underwater life and growing up I was obsessed with mermaids I loved mermaids all I wanted to do was like swim in the pool all day with my friends and play mermaids and swim around and like do the iconic hair flip thing director Rob Marshall I feel like was such a great choice for this film because he is well known for doing musicals and I really felt like the way that this movie was presented felt like I was watching a musical which makes sense because the music plays such an important role in the story and the music by Alan menkin is so legendary so iconic like we know all of those popular songs.
But Melissa McCarthy as Ursula was amazing she was really really having fun with the character and just like going all out with like the body language with the voice and everything and just the evilness of the character she was so so so entertaining to watch and then other standouts for me were actually David Diggs as Sebastian he was great so so so funny like he had a lot of the funniest lines in the movie and yeah I mean I love Sebastian in the cartoon but he did a fantastic job as Sebastian in the movie and of course I always love a little bit of Aquafina and she was in this as well as Scuttle and I really really enjoyed her as well and some of the comedic banter between her and Sebastian so so funny overall really really enjoyed it and just like the look of it as well right we saw from the trailers that they they were really going for like a very beautiful colorful Underwater World.
I think they really delivered because as soon as we were kind of going into the water and everything like that I was just so fascinated and like I don't know if that's just because I am a person who really enjoys underwater life and growing up I was obsessed with mermaids I loved mermaids all I wanted to do was like swim in the pool all day with my friends and play mermaids and swim around and like do the iconic hair flip thing director Rob Marshall I feel like was such a great choice for this film because he is well known for doing musicals and I really felt like the way that this movie was presented felt like I was watching a musical which makes sense because the music plays such an important role in the story and the music by Alan menkin is so legendary so iconic like we know all of those popular songs.
I've just been singing them in my head the whole time Kiss the Girl Part of Your World Poor Unfortunate Souls even such great songs is so memorable so classic and the way that they were presented in the movie it was really really great it was so beautiful so engaging so colorful really well choreographed I would say that my favorite musical number was for under the sea it was really really just amazing seeing all of the the different underwater Aquatic Life just join in on this song and dance number in a way that you know made sense because watching back the original animation they did things differently and I'm gonna go into that a little bit later on right now I'm just keeping it really big obviously this is a non-spoiler review but I am assuming that everybody watching this has already seen.
The Little Mermaid cartoon soon if you haven't where have you been but yeah everything that I'm talking about now is kind of we know all of this stuff the costumes by Colleen Atwood were gorgeous like I love the representation of the myrrh people under the water like their outfits were just so beautiful and colorful I was just smiling throughout I really really liked it while the story is really familiar right because we all know the Little Mermaid either from the Hans Christian Andersen story or from the cartoon itself while it is really familiar it didn't feel like it was just copying the cartoon scene for scene like there were definitely frames where it was like oh this shot is recreating an iconic shop from the cartoon like you have to have that and it felt so satisfying to see that and to hear those songs that we're so familiar with I felt like The Lion King was kind of like a frame for frame re-jigging of the cartoon which is just like why why do we need that what if you're gonna copy it frame for frame I can just go watch the cartoon like I have a Disney Plus subscription I could do that and like I I freaking loved it so why do?
I need to see animals that can't really emote that well doing this whole movie I thought that for this one they paid enough homage to The Nostalgia while also being its own thing which I think is really important when you're doing something like this because we have the cartoon why watch the movie if it's gonna be a straight rip-off you know what I mean there were also some new songs which actually horrible I was so because they added additives in the live action adaptation of Aladdin and like I didn't think they were memorable at all and I didn't even really like them when I watched them it was like okay why where is here I was like oh okay that works that drives the story forward and in fact there was one song in particular that is so much fun and you guys will know it when you watch it like it was so much fun it got a round of applause on its own you know we were in the screening and people you know every time a familiar scene came on like after under the sea or part of your world and everyone was like oh clapping and then this song new song it's so catchy it's so fun so delightful and then at the end of it people were like because it was that good so if there's one thing that.
I wish could be different in a live action adaptation it's this so you know how in animation you can do this cool thing called anthropomorphizing which is basically where you can give an animal or an inanimate object human-like features or personality traits or you know it can just kind of have facial expressions and whatnot and it works because you know it's a cartoon and you can do stuff like that we suspend our disbelief because it's an animation and I felt like that was one thing that was really missing from this I thought Sebastian looked weird I don't even think that in the cartoon he looks like a crab but in this live-action adaptation he really does look like a crab flounder very much looks like a flounder or like a real fish and he was just kind of missing that cuteness that you get from the cartoon and obviously when it comes to animating a live action crab and a fish there's only so much you can do with the expressions and so sometimes.
I was kind of like not really loving how how they look however I thought that they did bring it back around because the voice acting was so good Jacob Tremblay did a really nice Flounder with like kind of like little scared little boy voice I definitely really loved David Diggs he was so good so funny that like Sebastian was still one of my favorite characters in this movie because he was so much fun now I'm gonna talk about something that I feel people have been talking about on the internet but like if you don't really want to go into anything that might be on the verge of being slightly spoilery you can just leave I hope you enjoy the film let me know what you think in the comments below but I'm gonna get into some like I guess internet controversy territory this was something that was brought to my attention before.
I watched the movie my friend told me that she had heard that some of the lyrics had been changed in a couple of this songs there was some stuff taken out of Poor Unfortunate Souls I don't know why it was taken out honestly I guess maybe because it's not super empowering to women but it was about how like oh you don't need your voice you can just like use your body language and you know men don't even like women who talk too much that that whole chunk of song those lyrics were taken out and then there was something added in to kiss the girl where it was like oh you know you can kiss the girl but you've gotta ask her first I listened back to the songs in their original form and I was like I didn't think we needed to take those out maybe some of those views are considered you know not feminist and antiquated she's a freaking witch you know that's her character she's supposed to be evil like I don't understand why that needed to be taken out and with kiss the girl there was that whole bit about like you need to ask her before you kiss her which I understand why you need to do that for today's day and age but honestly like the song didn't need changing like the whole point of that bit was like we need to save her life so she's not in servitude to evil Ursula for the rest of her days so she needs to be kissed by the prince.
I don't see why that's problematic we live in 2023. apparently these things need to be changed otherwise I really really enjoyed the movie I had a big smile on my face I felt really happy at the end of it it felt familiar and yet different at the same time and I feel like you know it doesn't take away from the original it's just kind of its own thing and it deserves to be out there doing its own thing I hope you guys really enjoy it let me know how you feel like is it the Nostalgia that's really propelling my feelings towards this or is it actually really good I'm gonna Veer on the side of I think it's actually a really good adaptation and dare I say it I think it might be the best one let me know your thoughts in the comments and I will catch you next time I'm a shower Kirk ciao.