The first half is good, the second half is great

Rating: 8/10 (23 August 2014)

"The Little Mermaid" is said to have kicked off a period for Disney known as the Disney Renaissance period, starting with this movie and ending with "Tarzan" a decade later. It is also said to be the first movie of the Disney Renaissance that started the incline of good movies before dropping with the release of "Pocahontas". I agree with the point that there was a decade long span of a Disney Renaissance period, but I have a little bit of a different view on this movie being one of the greats. While the last half of the movie is definitely deserving of that level of praise, the first half, while good, is not as well done, in my opinion.
After missing her father's celebration because she was searching a sunken human ship looking for artifacts, Ariel (Jodi Benson) is warned by her father King Triton (Kenneth Mars) end her interest with the human world. Ariel does not listen and ends up saving a human, Prince Eric (Christopher Daniel Barnes) from drowning after his ship catches fire and sinks. Triton forbids Ariel from going to the surface again, resulting in her making a deal with the sea witch Ursula (Pat Carroll) to become human for three days and to have a kiss of true love in exchange for Ariel's voice. If Ariel fails, Ursula will claim her.
While the first half of the film with Ariel's life underwater is good, it is not very original. Ariel wants to do something but everyone else tells her it's a bad idea. The only refreshing thing done with this is that Ariel comes off less as a cliché breaking traditions kind of character and instead like a teenage girl who just isn't listening to her father all the time. The part where Ariel and Eric first meet and fall in love is the most rushed romance of any Disney film. He just hears her voice and sees her and he's in love. She just sees him and she's in love. I know it's Disney, but even by their standards it is rushed and unbelievable.
The second half of the film is handled much better. When Ariel is unable to speak, a lot has to be conveyed in her facial expression and actions, which is always nice to see. The fish-out-of-water element (no pun intended) also really works here because it is not just that she has come from a different world, but that she has been given the wrong information on certain things in the human world, like forks and pipes, which allows for some good comedy.
The thing that really makes the movie shine, in my opinion, are the side characters, who are for the most part very memorable. King Triton comes off like a father who is worried about his daughter's well-being. Sebastian (Samuel E. Wright) is the first Disney character, I think, to actually have some sort of background with music that he uses at different points in the movie. Flounder (Jason Marin) serves as the timid, but still helpful friend to Ariel, and Scuttle (Buddy Hackett) works as the comic relief who thinks he understands things better than he really does. Ursula is a villain who, while what she's doing is evil, actually has some right to do certain things because of Ariel's contract, so she is not just evil. The same, however, can not be said about Prince Eric, who is pretty forgettable.
The animation of the film is spectacular, though the animation sometimes does not meet up with the voice work. The musical numbers aren't very memorable, with the exception of Sebastian's 'Under the Sea' and 'Kiss the Girl'. While tiny, something that bothered me is that while all of the sea creatures talked, Eric's dog Max didn't.
As I said, the first half of the film is good, but I don't view it as great, though the second half is. I can see why it is said that this film started the Disney Renaissance period, but I don't think that "The Little Mermaid" is as good and deserves to be mentioned with the movies people label as the greats, namely "Beauty and the Beast", "Aladdin", and "The Lion King".