The Little Mermaid (2023)

A mermaid princess (Halle Bailey) is fascinated with the world of humans. When a massive storm sinks a ship, she saves the life of a prince (Jonah Hauer King) and falls in love with him. She makes an unholy deal with the sea witch (Melissa McCarthy) to lose her fishtail and get legs in order to be near the prince. A live action remake of the 1989 Disney animated movie loosely based on the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen and directed by Rob Marshall (CHICAGO). I thought the 2017 live action remake of the animated 1991 Disney film of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was vastly superior to its predecessor so I had high hopes for this one. No such luck. The charm and innocence is gone and what we get is overblown and calculated. Bailey lacks a screen presence and her singing voice is average at best. There's so much CGI going on that even though it's a live action film, it still looks animated. The original song score by Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman has been extended with new songs co-written by Lin Manuel Miranda. All in all, watchable but joyless. With Javier Bardem, Melissa McCarthy, Awkwafina, Jacob Tremblay, Daveed Diggs, Art Malik, Noma Dumezweni and Jessica Alexander.