Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A true five star film.
I enjoy reviewing movies here on Amazon.com. I am pretty critical so I rarely give out five star reviews because I feel there are so few movies that really deserve a perfect score. However, Walt Disney's "The Little Mermaid" is such a film- a genuine, good hearted, crowdpleasing, five star artistic and entertainment masterpiece! I can't think of anything wrong with this movie. The animation was groundbreaking when it was first released, and it is still pretty stellar. The charactizations were perfect. Is there a more winning heroine in Disney's lexicon than Ariel? Who among Disney's villains can rival the dastardly and cunning Ursula the Sea Witch? The story, reworked from the Hans Christian Anderson classic, is heartwarming, romantic, and inspiring. And the music? Personally, I believe the music for "The Little Mermaid" to be quite simply the best ever written for a Disney movie, and the songs "Part of Your World," "Under the Sea," and "Kiss the Girl," rank among the best songs written for ANY movie. I guess it's obvious that I really love this film. Therefore, it's ironic that when it was first released in 1989 I didn't even think of going to see it in the theaters. Afterall, I was 18 and Disney movies were for kids. It wasn't until my parents purchased the video for my younger siblings that I first saw this masterpiece and fell in love with it. It now ranks among my favorite movies. Over the years I've gotten some ribbing from friends over my attachment to this movie, but I don't care. A great movie is a great movie regardless if it is a animated feature or not, and "The Little Mermaid" is a great movie!
Rating: - It Was Probably The Best Disney Animated Flick Since BAMBI
The year was 1989. It had been arguably twenty-two years since Disney had produced a classic- THE JUNGLE BOOK. Walt Disney Pictures had been known in recent years to spend three or four years on an animated flick, only to have it vanish out of theaters in little time at all. That all changed with THE LITTLE MERMAID, where Disney finally realized what made their movies excellent and enjoyable in the first place.THE LITTLE MERMAID tells its story extremely well about a young mermaid named Ariel who has a desire to act like humans, much to the dissent of father King Triton. Her desire increases even more when she rescues a human named Prince Eric from a shipwreck; she immediately falls in love with him. The scheming Ursula the Sea Witch (who is actually an enemy that is mysterious and evil, unlike the enemies in then-recent Disney movies) has been watching these scenes and decides to strike a deal with Ariel: She will give Ariel a potion that will turn her into a human for a limited period of time...for Ariel's voice, a special trait that Ariel loves. Even though Ariel's personality could be controversial, many of us would probably believe that Ariel knows what she wants (and she does), and she will do anything to get it- even if it means she has to have her voice taken away. But the story is not the only thing that makes this movie superb-it is also great to see how the other characters interact within the plot. And even when the focus of the plot changes, it is great to see that all of the characters move with the plot without changing their personalities. This makes events such as Sebastian's observation of a chef cooking sea critters, the singing of "Under the Sea" at its particular time, and Scuttle's attempt to stop a particular marriage perfectly reasonable and acceptable. The major characters are also all very memorable (with the possible exception of Ursula's sidekick eels Flotsam and Jetsam, who can never be really told apart). It is upsetting to think that Disney's artistic comeback was not realized initially, as THE LITTLE MERMAID was a lightweight in theaters. But thankfully, many people have bought the movie over the years. This movie is undeniably a phenomenon in its own right, and it is only one notch below the quality of Disney's ultimate triumph, SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS. And Disney would come close to SNOW WHITE again with BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.
Rating: - Things are better under the sea
Ariel is a 16-year-old mermaid who is real curious about humans and the world out of the sea. Ariel especially likes a prince named Eric. However, her father, King Triton, doesn't like the idea. King Triton says that humans are all the same, that they are mean and they kill fish. Ariel gets tired of her father getting mad at her for surfacing and checking out what's going on above the water. Ariel turns to a sea witch named Ursula for help. Ursula is evil and will do anything she can to add Ariel to her collection of mer-people that she has deceived. Ursula turns Ariel into a human for 3 days. In those 3 days, Eric has to kiss Ariel or Ariel will belong to Ursula and never see Eric or her father again. To help Ariel out, her friends, Sebastian the crab, Flounder, and a seagull follow her on her quest to marry Eric."The Little Mermaid" is definitely one of the best of the classic Disney films. It's entertaining, it features some cool animation, and it also has some good songs such as "Under The Sea." I thought the movie was a lot like "Sleeping Beauty" because it features a girl who can sing real well and she falls in love with a prince, but there's a major enemy to get past before the two can get married. I don't watch cartoons or cartoon movies nearly as much as I used to since I'm not a kid anymore, but I remember all the Disney movies I used to watch when I was a kid, and I have to say that "The Little Mermaid" is definitely one of the best ones. I recommend anybody who likes animated movies to get "The Little Mermaid."
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