The Little Mermaid reviews reveal if it's a worthy successor to the beloved animated film. The Little Mermaid is Disney's latest attempt at revisiting one if its classics for live-action. Directed by Rob Marshall and starring Halle Bailey, the movie is one of 2023's most anticipated releases.

Now, reviews have arrived for the live-action The Little Mermaid. While reviews sing the praises of Bailey's Ariel, it appears the other aspects of the film aren't as memorable. Check out what some critics are saying below:

Rachel Labonte, Screen Rant

In of faithfulness, The Little Mermaid is similar to the remakes of Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, in that the exact same story is told, albeit with some extra padding and a few new songs. Led by a pitch-perfect Halle Bailey, The Little Mermaid is bolstered by deeper characterization and a grand scope, even as it grapples with awkward visuals and a strangely shallow climax.

Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter

Marshall’s The Little Mermaid resembles a lot of recent Disney offerings: It’s sentimental, at times uneven and padded to weather controversy. There’s a nagging sense of risk-aversion — narratively, at least — and that wariness makes the fun it does have feel sanctioned. Like other live-action remakes, The Little Mermaid is a neatly packaged story ribboned with representational awareness. There’s enough in it to fill an evening, but it doesn’t inspire much more than a ing sense of déjà vu.

Alex Diggins, The Telegraph

Indeed, the film gets itself most into hot water with its uncomfortable grafting of live-action faces onto virtual sea-creature bodies. It’s not quite the Cats-esque horrorshow early footage seemed to portend – but we are well up uncanny valley without a paddle. Bardem’s King Triton is the worst offender, his hair and beard wafting in a way no substance has ever moved underwater: he looked more human when he had suckers sprouting from his face in Pirates of the Caribbean. Perhaps there’s just something about tentacles – the sight of McCarthy’s invertebrate wall-crawling will chill for a while.

Clarisse Loughrey, Independent

But there’s a real stink of obligation to everything that exists around Bailey and her star-making turn. There are two pretty but inconsequential new ballads, and a rap performed by Awkwafina’s Scuttle that is somehow a real Lin-Manuel Miranda rap and not, from what it sounds like, a parody of one. The animals are all now, of course, photorealistic. It’s odd to think they spent so much money on making Flounder (Jacob Tremblay) look like a real fish when they could have just bought a Big Mouth Billy Bass and achieved the same range of facial expressions.

Peter Debruge, Variety

Marshall makes the unfortunate decision to apply distracting visual effects to the deep-sea sequences, designed to fool our eyes into believing the actors did their work underwater: flowing CG hair, funny reflections and a lame “Snorks”-like filter, as if everything’s being seen through an aquarium. When the movie’s working, we don’t notice it, as for “Under the Sea,” a stunning sequence of Busby Berkeley-level complexity that suggests what a live-action “Fantasia” might look like. It’s audacious, but nowhere near as charming as “Kiss the Girl,” in which Marshall simplifies things, so we can follow how Sebastian and company are trying to bring Eric and Ariel together in this scene.

Ellen E Jones, The Guardian

Bailey is both the finished film’s only unmitigated triumph and the best argument for this whole live action remake enterprise in one shimmering mermaidcore package. If these films are to have any purpose beyond being nostalgia-powered cash-ins, it must be to allow all children – not just the white ones – to see themselves as Magic Kingdom denizens.

But almost everything else about this flops about like a dying fish on deck. Most significantly this applies to the trio of comic-relief characters: Sebastian the crab, Flounder the fish and Scuttle the seabird. This is no fault of the talented voice cast: Daveed Diggs, Jacob Tremblay and Awkwafina, respectively. It’s just that things that are cute or funny when done by an anthropomorphised cartoon cuddlies are no longer cute or funny when done by computer-generated sea-life approximates with no recognisable facial expressions. Whole sequences of character interaction fondly ed from its 1989 predecessor – Scuttle’s instructions on how to use a human “dinglehopper”, Flounder fleeing a shark attack – are rendered lifeless by CGI. And you’d be lucky to make much of it out through the murk of the underwater cinematography anyway.

Brian Truitt, USA Today

Maybe it’s because Menken and Howard Ashman's 1989 numbers are so deeply entrenched in culture, but the new songs, while fine on their own, don’t totally jell with the original tracks. And the live-action element stymies a song like “Under the Sea” – not only have the instruments been taken from the fish, a certain joyousness is missing, too.

As excellent a “Little Mermaid” as Bailey is, it was better down where it’s wetter the first time.

Kate Erbland, IndieWire

So, does it look real? Sometimes, sure, but that’s a strange worry for a story that is — again, again — about mythical sea creatures. Disney’s obsession with turning some of its most beloved properties into live-action offerings simply for, what, the realism? the technology? the money? stumbles into both flashes of brilliance and moments of sheer nonsense (the latter was more of an issue with the studio’s recent “Lion King” remake than in this Marshall t). That trend will likely continue to be true for the foreseeable future, but until the House of Mouse cracks the real problem at hand, these films will never become classics on their own merit.

That problem: Does it feel real? Not yet, and not even movie star turns and rapping birds and the very best of intentions can bridge that divide. For now, “The Little Mermaid” exists outside of the very world it so wants to be a part of, one already so lovingly rendered in its predecessor, “real” or not.

What The Little Mermaid Reviews Mean For The Remake

Some criticism of The Little Mermaid remake was already lauded at the film prior to reviews of the full movie. Online controversy has surrounded the visual effects of the movie for some time, especially the realistic designs of animal characters like Sebastian and Flounder. While Marshall didn't want technical aspects leading The Little Mermaid conversations, it appears lack of expressiveness for characters and reliance on CGI still impacted some critics' experiences.

However, it appears Bailey still manages to shine despite the rest of the movie's murky attributes. While the film itself may be a shallow retread of the 1989 animated classic, those who want to see Bailey as Ariel will likely be pleased by her performance. Because critics say she embodies Ariel faithfully, the movie could still see plenty of success at the box office given the draw of her performance.

Despite Bailey getting heaps of praise for her role in The Little Mermaid, it may be disappointing to hear that some of the original songs and story beats in the live-action remake don't live up to the original. With a runtime of 2 hours and 15 minutes, the film is still likely to be a unique experience, even for The Little Mermaid fans. But it seems that, outside Bailey's memorable way of bringing Ariel to life, The Little Mermaid sinks in all other aspects.

Source: Various (see above)