Disney continue their march through their classic films with The Little Mermaid.

The story follows mermaid Ariel (Halle Bailey) the youngest of King Triton’s (Javier Bardem) daughters who falls for human Price Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) and makes a deal with Ursula (Melissa McCarthy) with dangerous consequences.

I think the animated 1989 version is better, that doesn’t mean it is a bad movie it just feels a little unnecessary when you can watch that version.

The biggest issue straight out of the gate is that much like pretty much all these live action remakes is that it didn’t need to be made.

If I want to watch any of the films that have been remade then 9 times out of 10 I’m going to watch the original animation, they’re just classics with heart that can’t be re-created in live action.

Halle Bailey is also forced to convey the emotion of her character for a large part of the film just with her eyes and she does a great job of it.

I also felt Melisa McCarthy was great as Ursula although I felt her character was underused in what was ultimately an anti-climactic final act.

I do want to give a special to mention to Javier Bardem as he gives probably the flattest performance of his entire career as a King Triton.

I genuinely got the impression from his performance that he didn’t really want to be in this film and to be honest I can’t blame him as much like his performance the film feels largely flat for the most part.

For a kids Movie this is very long at 2 Hours 15 Minutes, I’m not sure it will hold their attention, there are parts of the movie that are boring and do drag on a bit.

My Rating: 6/10