"Nothing" is a bit of an exaggeration. You can quibble with casting choices here, flat-looking CGI there. But it's basically exactly the movie you would expect it to be.
But I discovered another reason to reject it as I was watching it:
I just don't want it.
As a critic, I operate under the assumption that every film has the potential to be the very best version of itself, and as such, has the ability to be a good or even great movie, full stop. That perspective assumes that every genre or type of movie you can find out there has the potential to yield up a five-star experience, if they get every detail exactly right.
It's a helpful perspective when reviewing movies because it allows you to look for the strengths even in genres that aren't naturally your thing. As critics, we have a responsibility to be as blank a slate as possible when coming in, open to every experience and poised to consider any film a candidate for your favorite of the year.
But when faced with movies like The Little Mermaid, which are pretty much the exact realization of what you expect them to be, it's valid to say "I just don't want a live-action remake of The Little Mermaid."
Some context here: I don't consider the original Little Mermaid from 1989 some sacred text that should not be remade. In fact, I've seen it only once. That's not the argument I am making.
The argument I'm making is that it's possible to say a movie is handled just about as competently as you might expect within its basic anticipated parameters and yet you still just don't care for it.
I think maybe the key phrase there is "anticipated parameters." These Disney remakes are only rarely capable of straying outside certain predetermined dimensions. David Lowery's two Disney remakes, Pete's Dragon and Peter Pan & Wendy, are good examples of movies that allow some of the director's own creative instincts to breach Disney's controls. It's kind of like when a Taika Waititi is able to shake up the Marvel formula, only to prove that this is really the exception as scads more basic bitch Marvel movies follow it.
It occurs to me that there was a chance, at least in unsubstantiated internet rumors, for The Little Mermaid to be that truly special exception. Before the spate of Disney live-action remakes really took off, Sofia Coppola was linked to the original Hans Christian Anderson material. Actually, now that I google it, these rumors are substantiated, as there is even a cast list for this project that never was. (AnnaSophia Robb was to have played Ariel.) Absolutely she would have deviated from the rigid template offered up by the screenplay of the original 1989 movie, as every movie made by Sofia Coppola -- with the possible exception of On the Rocks -- is very evidently a Sofia Coppola movie.
Disney never would have allowed such deviations, and so instead, The Little Mermaid was made by Rob Marshall -- who does not have the same directorial signature. Yes he was the director of Chicago, which I love, but beyond that he has felt more like a director for hire, and The Little Mermaid feels like a movie lacking in vision.
(As a side note, given all the other ways this movie succeeds in terms of representation, I'm a bit surprised they let a man direct the movie, having options within their own family of someone like Niki Caro, who directed Mulan for them a couple years ago. That's especially the case with material that has traditionally received criticism for failing to give agency to its heroine, who literally does not have a voice for much of the movie.)
So am I really saying anything other than the fairly standard complaint of "The Little Mermaid could have been better if they were willing to just take actual risks and did a slightly better job with the CGI?"
Maybe I am, maybe I'm not. But the reason I'm writing this post is that I did have sort of a revelation while watching this movie, that flies in the face of my previous critical assumptions:
Some movies can basically tick all the boxes and undermine your critical nitpicking and still just be something you don't, and maybe never did, want.
Perhaps this is the very example of the modern definition of mediocrity.
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