Pure brilliance

Rating: 10/10 (4 October 2007)

There is (in my view) only one criticism which can be levelled against this film, and that is that it plays fast and loose with Andersen's original in terms of the ending. I first read Andersen's stories as a child, and The Little Mermaid had a fairly typical unhappy ending. Personally, I thought the Mermaid deserved better and, on taking my kids to see this movie when it was first released, I was delighted to see that the people at Disney had given her the ending I always wanted for her.
The very first sequence, of Prince Eric's ship looming out of the mist, took my breath away.
I can understand Under The Sea getting all the attention - it is, after all, very jolly and colourful. But, to me, it pales into insignificance next to Kiss The Girl (soulful, and with a far better vocal performance), Poor Unfortunate Souls (where sinister turns into nightmare, with a sensational vocal performance from Pat Carroll delivering clever lyrics) and, most of all Part Of Your World.
I think this may be the most perfect song sequence ever committed to celluloid - the song itself intertwines several plot elements, teenage angst and the generation gap, and bucketloads of emotion in a complex rhyming scheme loaded with clever wordplay. Jodi Benson's vocal is sublime and so are the visuals - it still brings tears to my eyes after repeated viewings. And the reprise... choreographing the final "world" to an orchestral crescendo and the crashing of the wave behind Ariel in Copenhagen mode may be corny but, by heaven, it certainly works! Howard Ashman is sadly missed!