A teenage girl mermaid named Ariel dreams of being part of the human world. Ariel rescues a Prince from drowning, falls in love with him and wants her dream even more. To make her human, Ariel makes a deal with a Sea Witch named Ursula by giving away her voice and has only three days to get the Prince to kiss her so she can become human forever.
Lets start with our main character Ariel. Well, it seems a lot of people seem to either love or hate this character. Why you may ask, because she whines a lot (Even when she sings); has the cliches of a teenage girl and gets everything in the end for all the drama and complaints she's caused. So she's has a few flaws ,but to be honest every good character has to have flaws that's what makes a character so interesting, likable and relatable, and while having all the teenage girl cliches, well I find it all pretty typical for a girl around her age. Yeah, she gets everything in the end when in original story she dies from her mistakes, but we knew Disney wouldn't kill off our main character (Well at least in a full length movie with a full story) because (And lets be honest) most of us want to see a happy ending then a sad ending. Kids want to leave the theater happy then depressed and emotionally scarred for life. Also in my opinion, I don't think she's much of a whiner. I mean she does whine and complain, but those scenes are more of her trying to stand up for herself and her dream and trying to reason with her father that humans are probably not all that bad which is something that Disney Princesses never do. In fact, I find plenty of good things to appreciate from this character such as being the first Disney Princess to be very rebellious; goes after her dream then wish for it; is very adventurous; aside from her whining (Which once again I see it more as trying to stand up for herself then just whine and complain until she gets it) she's still sweet, friendly and likable, she can be funny at points (Especially when she's a human) and on top of it, she actually saves the Prince not once but twice. This character is a major step up to the plate of changing Disney Princesses and whether you like her or not, you at least have to appreciate her for being the first to change the Disney Princess image.
Now we go to our love interest Eric. His personality is likable, he's very heroic (Which by the way, the actor voiced Spider-Man in the 90's Animated Series), but what really makes this character great is the love between him and Ariel. This isn't the typical Disney Princess film, where the two meet sing or dance together and fall in love, it's the exact opposite. When the two meet Ariel falls in love with him, while Eric briefly sees her, hears her voice and realized that she rescued him. Instead of falling for her looks, he's more in love with the fact that she rescued him and heard her sing to him before she disappeared. When the two meet again, he doesn't recognize her, but the two have to develop their love and as time goes on, Eric falls in love with her even if he doesn't think it's the girl who saved him. That's a total improvement to the love chemistry in Disney films.
The villain, my goodness is she awesome. She's crazy, she's funny, she's insane, she's smart and she's scary. Every scene you see her in is either one of the things I just mentioned or all of the things at the same time. She's just a really fun and evil character and her design is really cool and freaky. To me, her best scenes is when she sings her villainous song; disguises herself as a beautiful woman; and becomes all powerful. She truly is one of the greatest Disney Villains of all time!
The supporting characters are all great. You have the funny crab Sebastien; The hilarious seagull Scuttle voiced by Buddy Hackett; Ariel's cute friend Flounder; Chef Louis, which he and Sebastien have some very funny slapstick when they're together; Eric's friend and servant Grimsby (Who is voiced by the same actor who voiced Roger in "One Hundred And One Dalmatians"); the two scary eels working for Ursula; Eric's sweet female servant Carlotta; and the dog Max who's trying to point out the obvious to Eric. Out of all characters in this film, the one who actually has development is King Triton voiced by comedic actor Kenneth Mars. First of all, he's not the typical Princess Father who dies or is briefly shown, he's actually more of a main character than supporting character, while Ariel plays a part to Triton's development. He starts out as a hot head with extreme prejudice against humans, but in the end after Eric proves himself to be good as well as realizing that the two truly love each other, he realizes that not all humans are bad and accepts the fact that his daughter is growing up and has to set her Daughter free to live a life of her own sooner or later. Even though it's kind of more for adults than kids, it's still a great message.
The songs in this film are all freaking amazing. The Academy Award winning song "Under The Sea" is so catchy, memorable and fun that it's hard not to sing along to it or feel engaged of all the fun happening in this number. "Part Of Your World" not only describes our lead, but the song is beautiful and almost every girl I know who loves this movie sings this iconic Disney Princess song, in fact I think this is the best Disney Princess song. "Kiss The Girl" is very romantic, creates a great romantic atmosphere and is indeed catchy. Instead of having one villain song, we have a few. "Poor Unfortunate Souls" sung by our main villain, goes from being a smooth waltz type of song to a flat out crazy, chaotic and twisted song that's so out of control that it's scary. Then we have Chef Louie's song "Les Poissons" which is a crazy and psychopathic song about a chef loving to kill fish as Sebastien watches in fright and disgust. The other songs are all short, but believe me they still are enjoyable and memorable. As for the score, it's marvelous!
As for the animation, it's the best animation that people wanted to see from Disney for a long time. It's magical, it's colorful, it's dark, it looks like a Fairy Tale coming to life, it looks timeless and it still is amazing today. When you really get down to it, it's actually some of Disney's best work and never ever stops looking impressive. Like I said before, it's not just the animation that people wanted to see, but it also brought back that big and epic Fairy Tale and fantasy look that hasn't been so great since "Sleeping Beauty".
It's indeed one of the best Disney films of all time. Our lead was a big step to a new look on Disney Princesses; the love story is great; the villain's awesome; the supporting characters are fun; the Dad is well developed; the songs still hold up; and the animation is gorgeous. This is not just an amazing animated Disney film, but it also started the Disney Renaissance!
RATING 5/5
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