The year was 1989, the year gave birth to animation hits ‘The Simpsons’, which is still airing new episodes up to this day, and ‘The Little Mermaid’, which became a box office success for Disney and their highest grossing animated movie up to that time, but it was ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Aladdin’ and ‘The Lion King’ which were bigger box office hits, the latter grossing over $950 million worldwide, but that’s for another review for another day.

 

‘The Little Mermaid’ the 28th animated film in the Disney Animation Canon and the first film in the era titled the ‘Disney Renaissance’. Grossing only $211 million worldwide, isn’t much when you compare ‘Mermaid’ to Disney’s next three big films, all grossing over $400 million worldwide, it makes ‘The Little Mermaid’ a little hit at the box office, but based on a budget of only $40 million, it was a massive success, and has gained a cult following after theatres.

 

I think ‘The Little Mermaid’ has gained VHS and DVD success for families to watch and gained recognition and developed a solid fan base, similar to the like of MGM’s 1939 film ‘The Wizard of Oz’.

 

Before viewing this movie for the first time, I have only seen certain scenes, but never the full movie, until now.

 

The film centres on Ariel, the princess mermaid, who desperately wants to be a human, after collecting human made items such as a fork, which made me laugh out loud when Ariel is at a dining table and is using the fork as a hairbrush. She collects these human items for her collection, that she keeps in hiding from her overprotective father, but one night, Ariel swims onto a ship and sees Eric for the first time and instantly falls in love with him.

 

The animation is extremely vibrant and colourful and dark too, mainly the final scenes of the movie.

 

Characters are so well likeable such as King Triton, Ariel, Eric, Ursula, Flounder and Sebastian.

 

The songs and the music are one of Disney’s finest and catchy tunes such as "Under the Sea", which was the winner for Best Original Song at the Oscars in 1990, "Kiss the Girl", nominated for Best Original Song at the Oscars in the same year, 1990, and "Part of Your World" which is the best song in the whole movie that delivers on a very emotional scale for Ariel and has become the movie’s signature song.

 

Overall, this movie is, in my opinion, one of Disney’s best animated films ever created by the company.

 

The story is solid, catchy songs and the animation is vibrant and colourful.

 

I highly recommended in giving this film a go, it surprised me a lot.

 

Score: 10/10

Published: November 8th, 2013

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