Shawn's Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning Review

2008 Movie # 101 - Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning

This was actually my first venture into the world of direct to DVD Disney sequels. I'd read reviews and heard opinions and they all sounded like they were complete crap so I figured why bother. After watching this one it looks like I was right, I haven't been missing out on a whole hell of a lot.

I really like the first Little Mermaid I'm just gonna come right out and fucking say it. I grew up with that shit and I still hold a soft spot for it even to this day. I never saw it's sequel, but this one here is a prequel, which just about never works. The storyline is a little interesting, but is not a story that really demanded to be told. It makes the movie come off as feeling a little pointless since it doesn't really expand on anything or tell us anything we didn't already know. It's neat to see how some characters met and a bit of the origin story, but I think a lot more could have been done with the whole prequel angle here.

The animation is actually surprisingly good and way better than I expected for this type of release. Then again it's Disney and I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. It definitely looks a whole shitload better than Space Chimps I'll tell you that right now.

The one area where this movie really misses the mark though is with the songs. The songs are one of the most important aspects to making a successful Disney movie and this one doesn't hold up at all. I just finished watching the movie barely an hour ago and I couldn't for the life of me tell you how a single one of the new songs went. They are instantly forgettable. There is a version of that Shake Shake song that shows up a few times but they didn't write that song so I can't give any credit.

The voice acting is good and it's cool that original voices made their return to the roles. The voice of Yakko showed up at one point and you certainly can't argue about that. The humour is very kid oriented of course, though there are a couple of smiles here and there.

Overall I didn't hate the movie. The story wasn't bad and it was short and went by quickly enough. Some aspects of the origin were interesting, but the songs are boring and most of the humour is meh. Kids may like it, but I can't recommend it to adults. I give it a two because it does its job well enough and provides some good animation, as well as what looks like more effort than I'm sure a lot of these types of movies receive.

**/5