Swimmingly good

Rating: 7/10 (29 December 2016)

Credited with really starting Disney's animated Renaissance, my wife was determined to make me watch this with her over the festive holiday. How could I resist?
Adapted from the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale, it's excellent family entertainment, with a suitably sympathetic pair of young lovers at the heart of its story, a disagreeably bad villain in the guise of the wicked witch of the sea and a fine soundtrack of catchy songs perfectly in simpatico with the plot.
Of course the under-the-sea settings with its exotic creatures give the animators plenty of scope for colour, imagination and flair and they don't let us down. I wasn't sure the story required that Ariel actually lose her voice for a significant period of time, but if it's in the original story (and I haven't checked) then fair enough, I suppose.
There's nothing earth-shatteringly original in this movie which looks backward to Disney's glorious fairy-tale legacy of youthful innocence being corrupted by some evil menace going all the way back to Snow White, but modernised as here with some good jokes and today's music, it happily updates the studio's legacy and of course set the path for the great successes the studio and its PIXAR affiliate has enjoyed ever since.