Ariel is now in the hands of singer Halle Bailey. And it’s not like she can’t hold up to the same standards as the original illustrator. The film doesn’t ask her to do that. It takes her the better part of an hour before the flesh-and-blood Ariel loses her words. And when she does, whatever fizzy Bailey had in the beginning gets punctured. This Ariel has amnesia for needing that kiss, and she takes being “sly” off the table even for Bailey.
Along with her sister, Bailey is part of the R&B duo Chloe x Halle. They have a chilling and playful approach to melody that Bailey can’t quite unleash in this film. First, she has her two songs, one of which her standard “Part of Your World” could make her shiver towards the end. But what’s asked of her isn’t radically different from what Jodi Benson did in her first film. But ostensibly, her Ariel is different, so Bailey was cast. Bailey is black and she has long copper hair that is twisted, wavy, and bunched. What, racially, did the whole movie open up? Diversification? Now, playing Ariel’s pathetic father, King Triton, is the taciturn Javier Bardem, who does all of the King’s laments in English with Spanish. Instead of the original Broadway chorus, her mermaid brothers are a multi-ethnic, runway-ready assembly.
Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) is a white Englishman who now seems to have more intrigue than Ariel. “More” includes a meal with his mother, Queen Serena (Norma Dumezweni), is black, as is her chief, Lashana (Martina Laird). In a script named by David Magee, John DeLuca, and director Rob Marshall, she tells the Queen that she has adopted her prince (she’s an inquisitive then she knew she needed to know). McCarthy, who played her busty, tentacled Ursula (now Triton’s banished and resentful sister), puts a bit of pathos into her malignancy in the role. She seems to be having a good time, a little Bette Midler, a little Mae West, a little Etta James. And the sight of her lunging at the camera with her arms and squirts of rage is the film’s only good nightmare image. But even McCarthy seems to be stuck with one grunt after another at her cartoon version and Pat Carroll’s vocal tribute to immortality.
The manga was about a girl who wants to quit show business. She and her sisters basically performed folly for King Triton’s amusement. The songs by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken were aimed at the Disney division of American Songbook. Voices and evocations were Las Vegas and Vaudeville. The dry land was pretty dry entertainment-wise, but that was fine with Ariel. This new live version of her tells the story of a girl who wants to pull her own colors from her family’s rainbow and embark on “uncharted waters” with the White Prince.
