The Little Mermaid (1989)
★★½ — The Little Mermaid (1989)
There's a version of The Little Mermaid that could have been genuinely haunting. Hans Christian Andersen's original story is a melancholic, almost cruel thing: a girl who gives up her voice, suffers with every step, and still doesn't get the boy. It ends in dissolution, not a wedding. Disney looked at all that and said: no, thanks, we'll take the wedding. Fair enough, I suppose. That's their business. But knowing what was left on the table makes it hard to watch this version without feeling like you're eating a meal that's been stripped of half its flavour.
What you get instead is pleasant. Genuinely, warmly, undemandingly pleasant. Ariel wants to be part of the human world, she trades her voice to Ursula the sea witch, she has three days to get a prince to kiss her, and it all wraps up with a bow that couldn't be tidier if it tried. The stakes never feel particularly high, the romance is rushed to the point where you're asked to just accept it rather than feel it, and the resolution arrives so predictably you could set your watch by it.
Where the film absolutely earns its reputation, though, is the music. "Part of Your World" is the real thing: a proper anthem of yearning, the kind of song that captures something true about wanting a life beyond the one you were handed. And "Under the Sea" is irresistible, all calypso bounce and comic energy, and rightly garlanded with awards. I won't argue with either of those. The trouble is that the rest of the soundtrack is largely filler: serviceable, tuneful filler that does its job and then evaporates from memory the moment the film's finished.
The animation holds up in patches. The underwater sequences are fluid and inventive, the sea creatures are full of personality, and the expressive character animation on Ariel herself is genuinely lovely work. But the human world feels comparatively flat, and Prince Eric is one of the most forgettable leads Disney ever put on screen. Stiff, blandly handsome, with barely enough personality to fill a thimble. He's less a character than a plot requirement.
Ursula, on the other hand, is brilliant. Pat Carroll voices her with such delicious, theatrical relish that every scene she's in crackles into life. She's glamorous and grotesque in equal measure, all sweeping tentacles and wicked grins, and she's easily the most fully realised character in the whole film. But even she can't do much about a plot this thin. She shows up, she schemes, she's dispatched. The film doesn't quite know what to do with a villain that good.
I think about where Disney went from here, and the contrast is instructive. The storytelling grew sharper, the emotional stakes got higher, the ambition expanded. I wrote about The Hunchback of Notre Dame as a film that at least swings for something difficult, and there's something in that willingness to push into uncomfortable territory that The Little Mermaid never even considers. This one is content to be cheerful and bright and kid-friendly, which is fine as far as it goes. And when I think about where the studio's musical ambitions eventually landed, something like Moana feels like the fully realised version of the promise this film makes and only partly keeps.
The Little Mermaid matters enormously as a historical moment: the film that pulled Disney animation back from the brink and set off a decade of genuine creativity. That's real, and worth acknowledging. But historical significance and actual quality aren't the same thing, and watching it now, it's hard not to see it as more of a beginning than an achievement in its own right. A bright, tuneful, thoroughly likeable film that's more notable for what it started than what it is.
Two and a half stars.
Rating: ★★½ | Year: 1989 | Watched: 2026-04-21
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Sky Store
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: Disney Plus · fuboTV
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from John Musker: Hercules (1997) · Moana (2016)
More from the 1980s: Nightmare City (1980) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Style Wars (1983) · Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers (1980)
More animation: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025)
More family: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Wonder (2017) · Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anastasia (1997)
