The Little Mermaid’s debut Rotten Tomatoes score may be positive, but its praise highlights an ironic reality about the quality of Disney’s live-action remakes. Hitting theaters May 26, The Little Mermaid boasts a star-studded cast with Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King, Javier Bardem, Jacob Tremblay, and Melissa McCarthy tackling the iconic characters from the 1989 animated classic. The Little Mermaid follows a long string of Disney’s live-action remakes of animated films over the past 13 years, including Alice in Wonderland (2010), Cinderella (2015), Beauty and the Beast (2017), and The Lion King (2019). Despite the remarkable anticipation for the 2023 film, caution was warranted for its quality given the divisive results of Disney’s other recent live-action remake efforts.
At the time of writing, The Little Mermaid holds a 71% score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, which is aggregated from 115 reviews. The 2023 live-action remake is being praised for Halle Bailey’s performance as Ariel and an undeniably entertaining take on the classic story, though critics frequently note that The Little Mermaid's big-budget remake lacks the vivaciousness of the original and fails to dive deep enough into the story's complexities. Being lauded as one of the studio’s best live-action remakes, the Rotten Tomatoes summary reads, “With Halle Bailey making a major splash in the title role, Disney's live-action Little Mermaid ranks among the studio's most enjoyable reimaginings.” Considering this assessment indicates a well-rounded high-quality film, the movie’s actual score is quite ironic for Disney.
The Little Mermaid's 71% Rotten Tomatoes Score Shouldn't Indicate One Of Disney's Best Remakes
While a 71% Rotten Tomatoes score from critics indicates mostly positive reviews, this score is nowhere close to the near-universal praise that would be expected after such an encouraging summary for a Disney movie. Rotten Tomatoes scores are aggregated by assessing whether a movie’s reviews are positive rather than their actual rating, so a 71% score can typically mean that a film is of fairly average quality. Comparably, Disney’s Pixar, which is known for high-quality animated films, boasts Rotten Tomatoes scores greater than 90% for two-thirds of its 26 films, only two of which come in below 75 percent. Proving the opposite of Disney’s live-action standards, Pixar’s Lightyear was considered one of the studio’s worst entries despite holding a 74% score.
The irony thus sets in that The Little Mermaid’s 71% score actually is superb for a Disney live-action remake, as the bar has been set low by the divisiveness of the studio’s past reimaginings of animated classics. The Jungle Book is the only big Disney live-action remake to hold a higher Rotten Tomatoes score than the animated original (94% vs. 88%), with the lowest score yet being Pinocchio’s 29 percent. The Little Mermaid was also held to high standards due to the 1989 animated classic’s stellar 92% score, making its relatively low score more disappointing.
After a dozen more Disney live-action remakes over the past decade, a 71% score for The Little Mermaid shouldn’t still be the mark of one of the studio’s best and most enjoyable entries in its vast slate of reimaginings. Rather, it should be a score competing with the 94% rating of 2016’s The Jungle Book. Unfortunately, The Little Mermaid’s Rotten Tomatoes score from critics is a harsh reality check for Disney that its live-action remakes aren’t working, despite incredible cast performances.
How The Little Mermaid's Rotten Tomatoes Score Compares To Disney's Other Live-Action Remakes
Rotten Tomatoes is accurate in assessing that The Little Mermaid is one of Disney’s greatest live-action remakes of animated classics. At 71 percent, The Little Mermaid is tied with Beauty and the Beast for the fourth-highest Rotten Tomatoes score of the more recent slate in this Disney category, ranking behind Mulan (72%), Cinderella (83%), and The Jungle Book (94%). While Cruella holds a 75% score on Rotten Tomatoes, the 2021 hit isn’t a proper remake, as it’s technically an origin story and reboot for 101 Dalmatians.
The Little Mermaid’s Rotten Tomatoes score beats those of Disney’s other recent big-budget live-action remakes like Peter Pan & Wendy (66%), Aladdin (55%), The Lion King (52%), Alice in Wonderland (51%), Dumbo (45%), and Pinocchio (29%). Oddly enough, Aladdin, Alice in Wonderland, and The Lion King make up three of Disney’s four live-action remakes to break $1 billion at the box office, proving relatively bad reviews aren’t necessarily bad news for this category’s success. Therefore, more positive reviews will likely yield a massive box office return before The Little Mermaid streams on Disney Plus.
Why Disney's Live-Action Remakes Keep Failing With Critics
The saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” has frequently emerged in discussions of Disney’s recent obsession with live-action remakes. While Disney boasts that its animated movies tell classic tales that appeal to generation after generation, that doesn’t mean that they need to be remade. The technological advancements of CGI are crucial tools that allow such stories to finally be told with real people on screen, but these advancements shouldn’t be the only reason why the movies are made again. Rather, the remakes should be adding more depth and nuance to the original stories that live-action can offer.
Unfortunately, Disney’s live-action remakes have often stayed at the surface, simply producing the same story again but with CGI realism and human upgrades. Poor critical reviews continue to point out that the better story is the animated classic, as the studio appears to be focusing more on the CGI enhancements that can be applied to the original movie than actually crafting something new to say about the story and characters. Disney’s live-action remakes aren’t failing with critics because the stories are bad or better suited for animation, but because they’re generally beat-for-beat copies with much of the original magic being removed simply to fit a different medium.
Disney’s live-action changes are often dazzling to see on the big screen, but – as is mentioned by critics about The Little Mermaid – don’t work when they fail to add anything narratively beneficial. It’s paradoxical for a live-action movie to strip the life away from animated characters, but this is one of the biggest criticisms of Disney’s reimaginings. This isn’t to say that Disney should stop producing live-action remakes – The Jungle Book is an excellent example of how such efforts can succeed – but that continuing to churn them out without novelty and originality won’t work. The Little Mermaid is not a perfect remake of the original animated movie, though its lively additional sequences and deeper character development underscore why its reception is far more positive than Disney’s other recent endeavors.
Source: Rotten Tomatoes