Like Beauty and the Beast, I don't think this movie is quite as good as everyone says it is. Don't get me wrong, it's still fantastic and I have great respect for what it did for Disney, I just don't really adore any Disney princess films that aren't Aladdin. For those of you who don't know, Disney wasn't doing so well for around a 20-year period. They were making movies, but they weren't doing so well. This would also be a great time to point out that Don Bluth was doing so well because Disney was doing poorly and it's The Little Mermaid that made his weird movies start. However, Don Bluth is not the subject of this review, so let's get on to the Mermaid.
The animation is lovely and it set the standard for great ones like Aladdin and Mulan. It was bright, warm and colourful and it matched the visuals wonderfully. When the film wanted to be happy and cheerful, it looked happy and cheerful. When it wanted to be dark and intense, it could be dark and intense. The characters are wonderful, memorable, and animated beautifully of course, and The Little Mermaid still remains one of Disney's best animated films to date.
Another thing I liked about this was that it had a really cool villain. Ursula still remains one of the best disney villains ever and for good reason. However, the one thing I didn't like was that she was always complaining about how she looked and yet we clearly saw her turn herself into a beautiful woman. She's so hot that even the priest is getting a boner (seriously, take a close look, he does). But despite her faults, she is a decent villain with a cool design, a perpetually twisted look in her eye, and a great villain song. She also has great sidekicks, namely Flotsam and Jetsam.
The voice work is decent, but what is truly superior to everything was the songs. These are some of the best catchiest songs in Disney history and every child who grew up with Disney knows them. My personal favourite is "Poor Unfortunate Souls", seeing as I love villain songs, but I love the classics like Under the Sea and Part of your World. The songs were of the utmost quality and set the tone for the classic songs of Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin.
That brings me to the point I want to make now. Even though I was never really attached to TLM or Beauty and the Beast, TLM did set the tone for the major success of Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. It put in place that disney formula of catchy musicals and sweeping snarky coming-of-age romances that was so popular in the nineties and early 2000's. The story of the movie is pretty well told, and I will assume most of you have at least heard of the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale, so I feel no need to explain the plot. There really isn't that much to say about the movie further, but it was good.
If you haven't seen TLM, I would recommend it to anybody male or female. I was one of those kids of the nineties who grew up with Disney and I saw this movie at least once in my childhood. I remember it fondly, even if I wasn't terribly attached to it in my childhood. All in all, a great movie that set the tone for all the great Disney Renaissance films.
