Not bad, but overrated

Rating: 6/10 (11 December 2012)

People say that The Little Mermaid was a classic, and a great way to start off the Disney Renaissance. While I think that it had a good setup, has many good things in it, and it could've ended up as one of my favorites, I say that this film has 2 flaws, and they're huge ones.
First problem is our main character, Ariel. She's just a bratty teenage girl who does the teenage clichés. She has a big motive, but disobeys her father and makes a deal with the sea witch, Ursula, to get what she wants. And in the end, she doesn't learn anything and still gets what she wants. If your main character is not likable, that's not a good sign.
My second problem is the morals. Like I said before, Ariel doesn't learn anything, but her father does. King Triton, at first, is an overprotective father who has the "My way or the highway" type of personality, but changes as the film goes along. At the end of the movie, he gives Ariel exactly what she wants. He learns to let his daughter go and not be so overprotective. Kind of a botched message, but I'm over analyzing here. I think this would work great if Triton was the main character, not Ariel. It's the main character that's supposed to learn in a movie, not someone else.
These are huge flaws indeed, but it doesn't make The Little Mermaid a bad film. There's tons of things to like, such as the songs, the animation, Ursula, some of the comedy, etc. Those flaws, for me, stop the film from being good. But the things to like in this movie stops it from being bad, in my opinion. 6/10.