Honestly, none of these remakes are good, but that one was especially not good. Everything they subtracted from the movie was not balanced out by what they added. They also really misunderstood what animal Sebastian was supposed to be… While it's true, they call him a "Crab" throughout the original film, it's clear by how they animated him that he is some kind of Hermit Crab. I understand that making him a "Fiddler Crab" in itself is a kind of pun, but it's never stated in the film, and only crab nerds would know this. This choice caused him to lose most of his expressiveness, since he would often retreat into his shell in the original film when scared. Obviously, turning him into a hyperrealistic crab also removes his expressiveness as well, but at least a Hermit Crab has that layer of expressiveness with its shell.
Melissa McCarthy as Ursula definitely didn't hit the mark either. Her performance was not dramatic or bombastic enough and the look was overall weak, they also really downplayed the light body horror stuff that made her so creepy in the original. Since they were already going to be called woke from the start, they should have just leaned mega hard into it and cast someone like Eureka O'Hara into the role, as an homage to Divine, who Ursula was modeled after.
I mean, they gave Ariel an extra song, which she SINGS after her voice is TAKEN by the contract she signed with Ursula. They added this song (along with the rap song) and cut all the parts of the movie that bring context to who Sebastian even is and why he's so musical. That lost context makes songs like Kiss the Girl and Under the Sea feel strange because, in both songs, he is literally striking up the band and getting the animals to perform music. In most musicals, the characters are not aware they are in a musical, but all of his songs are effectively Diegetic music in the original. He is the court's composer as well as a general servant of the king. It really felt like they had no idea what to do with his character after making him so realistic. They even went so far as to drop him in the ocean before the final conflict, which cut out all his contributions within those scenes.
Musically, all the recompositions of the original songs are just kind of bad. They lose something the originals had, and it's also pretty clear they had to do a lot of post work on the vocals to get them tuned right.
Just Idiocy. Broken clock something something...
Honestly, none of these remakes are good, but that one was especially not good. Everything they subtracted from the movie was not balanced out by what they added. They also really misunderstood what animal Sebastian was supposed to be… While it's true, they call him a "Crab" throughout the original film, it's clear by how they animated him that he is some kind of Hermit Crab. I understand that making him a "Fiddler Crab" in itself is a kind of pun, but it's never stated in the film, and only crab nerds would know this. This choice caused him to lose most of his expressiveness, since he would often retreat into his shell in the original film when scared. Obviously, turning him into a hyperrealistic crab also removes his expressiveness as well, but at least a Hermit Crab has that layer of expressiveness with its shell.
Melissa McCarthy as Ursula definitely didn't hit the mark either. Her performance was not dramatic or bombastic enough and the look was overall weak, they also really downplayed the light body horror stuff that made her so creepy in the original. Since they were already going to be called woke from the start, they should have just leaned mega hard into it and cast someone like Eureka O'Hara into the role, as an homage to Divine, who Ursula was modeled after.
I mean, they gave Ariel an extra song, which she SINGS after her voice is TAKEN by the contract she signed with Ursula. They added this song (along with the rap song) and cut all the parts of the movie that bring context to who Sebastian even is and why he's so musical. That lost context makes songs like Kiss the Girl and Under the Sea feel strange because, in both songs, he is literally striking up the band and getting the animals to perform music. In most musicals, the characters are not aware they are in a musical, but all of his songs are effectively Diegetic music in the original. He is the court's composer as well as a general servant of the king. It really felt like they had no idea what to do with his character after making him so realistic. They even went so far as to drop him in the ocean before the final conflict, which cut out all his contributions within those scenes.
Musically, all the recompositions of the original songs are just kind of bad. They lose something the originals had, and it's also pretty clear they had to do a lot of post work on the vocals to get them tuned right.
All in all, 5/10 it's closer to a 4 than a 6.