- Starring
- Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King, Melissa McCarthy, Javier Bardem
- Director
- Rob Marshall
- Rating
- PG
- Genre
- Adventure, Family, Fantasy, Musical, Romance
- Release date
- May 26, 2023
Overall Score
Rating Overview
Rating Summary
Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid was first published in 1832. The original Danish story is quite the departure from either of Disney’s versions. Unlike them, it ends with Ariel dying and turning into sea foam after sacrificing herself to save a prince who never loved her and was on his way to his honeymoon with another. Before the end of this live-action remake, you’ll be praying to dissolve into sea foam too.
*UPDATE* It is our usual practice to include our “Children Suitability” and “Parent Appeal” ratings for children and family films. However, there’s been a lot of happenings behind the scenes here at Worth it or Woke this week and I (James) dropped the ball on this one. I’ve now added it to our review of The Little Mermaid.
The Little Mermaid
Starring Halle Bailey, who is best known for her role in the Black-ish spin-off series, Grown-ish, The Little Mermaid peaks in the opening sequence of a tumultuous sea. From there, the movie slowly (and I mean slowly) swirls around a sinkhole of graphics as soulless as the computers in which they were generated as well as identity politics posing as creativity.
At this point, most of us have accepted that these live-action remakes are blatant money-grabbing nostalgia bait. What is impossible to understand is then, why does it seem like every change made, big or small, is the wrong choice? Will Smith as the Genie? Garbage. Photo-realistic lion king? Emotionally spayed and neutered. Everything about Peter Pan & Wendy? The slime oozing out from the bottom of an August garbage heap. So it is with 2023’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid.
Remember the character and charm of Sebastian, Flounder, and Scuttle from the original? Well, they’ve been sacrificed to “photo-realism” and second-rate vocal performances, and they’re in good company because every cherished and tried comedic beat or emotionally impactful scene that you remember from the original has either had its head held under the water until the bubbles stopped or were axed completely, only to be replaced by sudden jarring bursts of sound and color so clearly staged on a set that you can practically see the matte painted backgrounds. Flotsam and Jestsom? Silent afterthoughts.The dinner scene that pits Sebastion against the cartoonishly sadistic French chef? It’s been replaced by a Caribbean-inspired marketplace filled with a mix of inexplicably white Americans and black Caribbeans, with just a smattering of Asians thrown in for good measure.
From the color palette and pale blue dress that Ariel wears to Melissa McCarthy’s bland and wooden-by-comparison digital cosplay of Pat Carroll’s iconic Ursula, everything about this shipwreck is a waterlogged and enervated simulacrum of the original. Even the destruction of Ariel’s cave is underwhelming and completely lacks the emotional impact of the original. It’s no small irony that the only actor who has anything resembling a standout emotional moment that connects on any level is Jessica Alexander, a relative unknown with a smattering of mostly one-off TV episodes to her credit, who briefly plays Ursula’s human alter-ego, Vanessa.
Veteran actor and Academy Award-winning Javier Bardem, who plays King Triton, definitively proves that he needs to stick to quietly menacing characters and that his out-of-place turn as Hector Valenti in last year’s Lyle Lyle Crocodile was not a one-time aberration. Not to be undone, Halle Bailey, who plays Ariel, is so far out of her depth that she might as well be treading water over the Mariana Trench.
With the lightest peppering of exceptions, Bailey’s performance consists of her doing her best (and failing) to either look innocent and naive or innocent and lost. The seasoned casting directors, Tiffany Little Canfield and Bernard Telsey must have been hungover the day that they decided to cast someone with all of the charisma of a sea cucumber in a role that requires the actress to silently emote for nearly half of the film.
Bardem, Bailey, and McCarthy aren’t alone. With the exception of the aforementioned Jessica Alexander, every performance from actors both seasoned and green feels on the level of a Disney theme park stage show featuring second-rate college theater majors in their first “big” summer stock role. This is undoubtedly due to a mixture of incompetence from director Rob Marshall and a whole lot of underwhelming and creatively dead animation from a staff with otherwise good credentials.
Seriously, the animation team from Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania must be sighing in relief to no longer be responsible for the year’s worst example of CGI in film. The underwater sequences are less than underwhelming, largely looking like a muted Windows screensaver almost brought to life, but not quite. The merpeople never look as though they are really underwater, and their movements (unless speedily swimming) appear as unnatural and poorly conceived as their performances. Moreover, their overall design looks like it was based on a Barbie cartoon which is in jarring contrast to the underwater backdrop, which is bland, muted, and boring.
According to his IMDB page, this is screenwriter David Magee’s first solo outing, and it’s easy to see why. As each scene inexpertly slogs its way from obvious stage set to atrocious computer-generated trash, the audience is also treated to The Great Pacific Garbage Patch of unnatural-sounding dialogue and forced exposition dumps. Because there’s nothing that audiences want more in a reported $200 million spectacle than to watch two people, or merpeople, sit or float and puke up exposition all over them.
Furthermore, Magee completely drained the story of the original’s most powerful emotional hook, the 3-day time limit to get Eric to kiss Ariel. While the time limit is still there, for some inexplicable reason, Magee chose to magically MacGuffin it out of Ariel’s memory or ability to register its existence via an addendum to Ursula’s enchantment. This most horrible choice among horrible choices serves to put the emotional weight of the deadline squarely on the digital shoulders of her three animal sidekicks, none of which have the ability to emotionally engage the audience thanks to the attempted photo-realism of their design. As a result, Ariel is relegated to being a secondary character who is only along for the ride, thinking that she has all of the time in the world.
Finally, we’ve come to the musical part of the review. For if there is something in this film that has a chance of being even remotely good if only by way of nostalgia, it has to be the iconic music. Wrong! No clam chowder for you! Not only are the songs that we all know and love performed with the same incompetence and lack of energy as the rest of this mess, but the new songs are bland and lack any sense of cohesion to the original score.
When the silt settles and the baked salmon cools, the 2023 live-action remake of The Little Mermaid is a seafood salad of poor performances, worse pacing, and creative bankruptcy that is better left on the sea floor. Do yourself a favor and rent a projector, a small sound system, and an inflatable projection screen and introduce your kids to the magic and wonder of the 1989 original.
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INAPPROPRIATE ELEMENTS FOR CHILDREN IN THE LITTLE MERMAID
- Ariel spends most of the movie in a fish scale sports bra. However, it’s fairly broad and by a mixture of God’s design and the costumers, it doesn’t reveal any cleavage.
- While the lyrics concerning women communicating via body language have been cut from Ursula’s “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” Melissa McCarthy still takes a moment to suggestively adjust her bosom in the scene.
- There are one or two moments (the shark chase scene in the opening and giant Ursula at the end) that the most sensitive of children might find to be too much
- Depending on your child’s age, they might be able to put together that none of King Triton’s daughters have the same mother.
WOKE ELEMENTS
- Let’s get the elephant seal out of the room. Of course, Ariel being race swapped could easily be assumed to be purely due to Disney’s self-imposed intersectional quota but, on the other hand, it totally is. The fact that they spent $200 million just on production alone (not counting probably over $100 million in marketing efforts), but couldn’t find an actress who could act is a testament to their choice to put representation over quality.
- In the opening scene, the humans on the ship, instead of being lovable ruffians like in the cartoon, are aggressive and superstitious. Their first act is to try and harpoon an innocent merperson who ends up being an even more innocent dolphin.
- This only sets the tone of the constant refrain from the merpeople, that humans are barbarians, and Eric, that his people are small-minded.
- Even though, the superstitious rabble is absolutely correct about the existence of the Sea King and his power over the realm.
- This only sets the tone of the constant refrain from the merpeople, that humans are barbarians, and Eric, that his people are small-minded.
- King Triton is a manwhore who has seven children to seven different merwomen, all of whom naturally represent the most stereotypical physical features of the populations that the West most closely associates with the sea that they inhabit, making sure that diversity for the sake of diversity is even more artificially on display than the crap digital effects.
- Scuttle is a girl, because why not?
- Prince Eric is adopted. While this is not at all woke, the fact that he’s only adopted so that he can remain a white character yet have black parents and be based on an island predominantly populated by black people is. It manages to be both pandering and woke at the same time. Furthermore:
- The kingdom has been changed from a European one to a more Caribbean one for the sole purpose of representation. However, it’s a complete mess because
- A. the palace and royal garb are distinctly Eurocentric, as is the royal accent but the populous at large is ripped out of a bad Caribbean theme restaurant.
- B. In a film that chooses to have photo-realistic talking fish and birds, it has no problem oddly including white people with a decidedly modern American accent on the island, as well as those of Asian descent, even though it repeatedly reminds us that the island is largely an isolationist country. More pandering nonsense. Either go for it or not. The juxtaposition is jarring and distracting.
- The kingdom has been changed from a European one to a more Caribbean one for the sole purpose of representation. However, it’s a complete mess because
- The human king is dead for two reasons:
- As an excuse to put a woman/queen in charge, because patriarchy bad.
- Because the patriarchy was literally bad. Apparently, the king is the one who shut the island off from the outside world and was against fraternizing with outsiders, and since we couldn’t possibly have a male ruler learn the error of his ways, he’s got to be dead.
- “I’m trying to reach out to other cultures so that we don’t get left behind.” The virtues of diversity are literally preached by Eric on more than one occasion. In fact, it turns out that diversity is the only thing that can save the flagging country.
- “They have no respect for the balance of the oceans.” Environmentalism is a regularly employed woke cudgel wielded against the audience.
- In one scene, the king and his daughters can be seen sifting through the wreckage of a freshly wrecked ship and they complain about how damaging humans are to the coral reefs.
- As a side note, here’s an article about how, despite the environmental alarmism that we had to put up with for years about the death of The Great Coral Reef, it’s actually thriving and, in areas in which it is still recovering, it is largely due to starfish eating the coral and not “global warming.”
- In one scene, the king and his daughters can be seen sifting through the wreckage of a freshly wrecked ship and they complain about how damaging humans are to the coral reefs.
- In two of the more ridiculous instances of wokeness over quality,
- From the same group of people who celebrate WAP as “empowering,” “Kiss the Girl” has been changed from
- “Yes, you want her / Look at her, you know you do / Possible she want you too, there is one way to ask her / It don’t take a word, not a single word / Go on and kiss the girl.” to
- “Use your words, boy, and ask her / If the time is right and the time is tonight / Go on and kiss the girl.”
- Ursula’s “Poor Unfortunate Souls” has had the section about men not wanting to listen to women and women using body language to get what they want removed. Never mind that Ursula is the obvious bad guy whose advice and recommendations are clearly not good ones. Which was the whole point of the original song.
- And it wasn’t removed because it was too sexual, as is evidenced by the fact that McCartney suggestively adjusts her breasts in the scene.
- From the same group of people who celebrate WAP as “empowering,” “Kiss the Girl” has been changed from
- They made sure that Ursula’s human incarnation remained white and practically ripped the costume, hair, and overall look right out of the 1989 version.
- In this version, Eric is saved by Ariel ramming the ship into Ursula instead of the other way around, because you can’t have a man saving a strong independent woman in her own movie.
James Carrick
James Carrick is a passionate film enthusiast with a degree in theater and philosophy. James approaches dramatic criticism from a philosophic foundation grounded in aesthetics and ethics, offering insight and analysis that reveals layers of cinematic narrative with a touch of irreverence and a dash of snark.
86 comments
Caleb
May 29, 2023 at 10:50 pm
This is the gayest website I’ve ever seen. When did conservatives become more hyper-focused on race and identity politics than the most ardent work-scolds?
stanedgie
May 30, 2023 at 8:16 am
@caleb, in the words of Elizabeth Banks when she made the god awful Charlie’s Angels, “This (website) is not for you”. And that you call this website “gay” says alot about your (lack of) education and ability to think rationally and independently (doubt you make any of your own desicions anyway, sure your mommy must dress you every morning after your “chest-feeding sessions”. Go join your blue haired woke friends over the left, you will not be missed.
Dave
June 1, 2023 at 4:54 am
You use ‘gay’ as derogatory which days everything about you.
Jay
June 1, 2023 at 11:23 am
When did “progressives” become more hyper-focused on race and identity politics? Thats all they talk about, well we can choose not to consume this type of crap.
Caleb
June 2, 2023 at 4:56 pm
I’m not the one literally cataloging how many black people are in each movie, from where I’m standing, you guys are the ones obsessed with race
John
July 14, 2023 at 7:16 pm
Take your L and move along, you’re only embarrassing yourself here
Lane
July 30, 2023 at 1:00 am
My man, you are gaslighting.
If a message is being sent through a movie without explicitly stating the intention of expressing the message, and someone else notices this, that is not an act of projection / intent on behalf of the consumer / critic, it is called intelligence and a result of noticing a change in patterning of the way a product (movies) are being made.
We wouldn’t be noticing it if it wasn’t intentionally added for the very purpose of creating that impression on the consumer –
You would have to have an IQ under 90 to genuinely fall for the argument that it is mere coincidence that the movie was cast in this way?
Selrisitai
October 10, 2023 at 12:08 am
Imagine a scenario in which a woman is being beaten by her husband. If she starts a foundation that attempts to save women from being abused, would you accuse her of “being too focused on beating women,” or suggest that she “must be the real wife-beater because she literally made an entire charity based on it”?
If you think I’m straw-manning your argument, please explain why you think someone saying, “This movie has identity politics in it at the expense of the story and characters” is tantamount to a general “focus” on race.
Luke Hates Commies
June 1, 2023 at 12:29 pm
Poor Caleb fresh out of his “Safe Space” to change his diaper & to teach us “Free Thinking Adults” what NOT to do! So nice to have this snowflake Gendersnap Liberal screaming & crying out Muuuh R@-schism whenever they read or hear a different opinion! Cayleb (C pronounced like a G) You are not a “savior” or Y-te Night you are a soy boi lozer puss bag that is constantly holding your girlz bag while she bangs real MEN! You picked the wrong side Brainwashed Commie Traitor because this website is Awesome & we love seeing you Gendersnaps freak out & cry! We can’t help it that your teachers failed you & only taught you how to suck as a human & blow instead of think for yourselves! Here is a great new WOKE cause perfect for you and all of the other soup smelling idiots…We call it “Hold your breath until you turn blue & into to worm food for Climate Change”! Also, you can’t use “Gay” that way anymore F@g…it’s mean!
Caleb
June 2, 2023 at 10:37 pm
This is like if ChatGPT was only fed Facebook comments from 2017
John
July 14, 2023 at 7:20 pm
This movie ended up losing over 50 million dollars. More people agree with us than agree with you delusional left wing nut jobs. Go dye your hair blue and argue over how many genders you think there are. Maybe after that you can continue trying to blackwash all the popular childhood characters from white culture, or maybe decide to make an Egyptian queen black out of a massive inferiority complex. You lefties are completely f***ed in the head.
stanedgie
June 3, 2023 at 5:22 pm
nice one!! and based on your very apt description of Caleb, he is so triggered now that he has to sing “I’m too sexy” to calm himself down. poor little snowflake who has no concept of the real world. Hope he does not run out of air in his little bubble.
Joy
June 1, 2023 at 2:09 pm
What are you? 12?
Maddox
June 1, 2023 at 2:15 pm
The irony in you using gay as an insult.
Phil
June 1, 2023 at 3:06 pm
Why do the left use Gay as a slur?
Caleb
June 2, 2023 at 4:54 pm
I’m not The Left, I’m just a guy
stanedgie
June 3, 2023 at 5:29 pm
really? Never heard a guy get as triggered as you are right now. You really need to leave your mommy’s house, grow a pair, get a job, and contribute to society as you sound like a snooty little boychild who has no concept of reality. And leave your “they/them” pronouns at the front door, we are not interested.
Mama
June 1, 2023 at 3:50 pm
Oh Caleb honey….that’s not very “woke” of you to call others “gay” how homophobic of you. I though you leftie progressive types were all about exceptance and tolerance back to your room to think about the error of your ways…and when your ready come back and apologise to the good people on here. Tisk tisk.
Caleb
June 2, 2023 at 10:38 pm
I’m gay you $!#&!# b!^@#
(Note by the admin: We edited Caleb’s childish name-calling. Everyone say “goodbye” to Caleb. We will tolerate a lot. After all, who doesn’t love a good troll? However, we will not tolerate this type of crude name-calling.)
Lol
June 2, 2023 at 7:22 am
Always, lmao. Google The Southern Strategy. Conservatism is literally identity politics for imbecilic blue collar whites who won’t admit that capitalism is f#@king them.
Craig Mailman
June 3, 2023 at 11:37 pm
Yes, but actually no. You have it backwards.
John
July 14, 2023 at 7:17 pm
Congratulations, now everyone knows you’re retarded
Tina Mallory
June 5, 2023 at 1:38 pm
The movies suck, why sift through them??? This is a great site. Enough with the “they’s”. You can listen to some woke person rant about their pronouns for 5 mins. I’m not against gays in cartoons, I’m against gays in EVERY cartoon. That’s not a reflection of reality and it’s preachy. Gays were in the simpsons, but the simpsons was funny! Now, it’s gay this, gay that, no storyline, just gay, just woke BS boring crap. No one wants to sift through some preachy propaganda to find something worth watching. This site is great.
David
June 13, 2023 at 1:54 am
It sounds more like you came here to spew venom than to use this site as intended. We do not want to immerse ourselves in the cesspool that is gender ideology, race pandering, virtue signaling, nor provide those that promote it with funds or viewing numbers. A story told once and told well need not be told again. If a live action is a must, don’t butcher it with a political agenda… Especially not one meant for kids.
David
August 10, 2023 at 12:07 pm
It is a good source so we can avoid subjecting our children to the WOKE non-sense that is plaguing the modern movies. You may disagree with it, but no one forced you to come to the website…did they?
Furthermore, your question about conservatives and our “hyper-focused” issues does not make sense. The whole point of THIS website is to allow us to get feedback on if a movie is forcing this ridiculous WOKE nonsense down our kids throats or is it “worth it”. It is not a platform to that is meant to laydown the 100,000 foot view of our pollical beliefs. It reviews the movies that are out there.
Again, if you don’t like the site, then stay off it. If you must comment (which for the record, you do not) then try to actually bring an argument of stance that at least has some thought and structure. “the gayest website” presents you as a dimwitted Muppet that should not be allowed to comment. 🙂
FreedomFighter
August 17, 2023 at 12:12 am
This website is solid gold. Finally found a place that can help quickly maneuver through all the woke trash that has been destroying entertainment lately, and find the gems that are worth watching. Thank you for saving us so much time and protecting us from the lazy, low iq, desperate victim, gender confused, God hating, tradition destroying wokie commie idiots. They destroyed all of our childhoods, can’t even come up with their own stories or original content, and can’t even steal something properly – all the work already being done for them, and they still go and mess it up. This is an era that will be remembered forever as the sorriest, lamest, most degenerate period of mankind. Hopefully we can survive this generation so that our kids have a chance at life, because right now the woke sickos have infiltrated every aspect of life, and are ######ting on everything, spreading their sewer and cancerous ideology to rot all the good things humanity has achieved and survived.
Antidote
October 16, 2023 at 9:31 am
We’re not the ones making the movies. We’re here to avoid certain ones.
Also this movie flopped.
Chris
March 10, 2024 at 10:38 pm
When liberals started to. Keep your fake virtue signaling to yourself. Leave the kids alone.
Caleb
May 31, 2023 at 10:30 pm
Love being called uneducated by a guy who can’t even figure out how to close a (paragraph.
The mere idea that you’d need to quantify movies based on how many black people there are in it or how many women are in it or whatever is the actual blue-haired woke behavior. You are literally incapable of watching movies from any other standard than “duhhh dis movie hurt my feelings.” You’re just doing the same analysis as every other media illiterate baby-brain and disguising it as “badass” because you’re fighting the deep state by reporting on whether Lyle Lyle Crocadile is woke or not. Insane way to spend your time lol.
Ray
June 1, 2023 at 1:25 am
He is a movie reviewer and he doesnt cater to you and you accuse other people of being hurt? Wow…..just wow.
Jay
June 1, 2023 at 11:25 am
Your exact same criticism applies to movie producers. They dont care about quality anymore, but how many of these and those are included in each film. That’s not appealing and people are tired of it.
Tina Mallory
June 5, 2023 at 1:40 pm
No storyline but just a lot of woke BS… That’s why this site is great. Movies are there to entertain, no one wants to be preached to 24/7 and all these woke movies do is encourage people to be racist and homophobic, so in fact these horrible woke tv/movies do the exact opposite of what they intend.
Limsky
June 1, 2023 at 1:05 pm
Lol this guy clearly a libtard
biden
June 4, 2023 at 10:42 pm
caleb 2024
antidote
October 16, 2023 at 9:33 am
Love how deeply wounded you are by the movie flopping.
Matthew Elliott
June 1, 2023 at 3:53 am
Hi all. Just discovered this site (mentioned in The Times newspaper) and I think I like it. The ‘wokemeter’ is useful but I agree with (for example) the comment on Fast X about how many innocent people die. No other review I’ve read makes this point. If innocent people are clearly dying then make it clear in the film, don’t hide it. Or if the makers don’t want innocent people dying then make it absolutely clear that they don’t (by some miracle bit of luck).
(By the way, on an iPad, the right hand edge of the comments goes off the screen so you have to turn it and read landscape.)
James Carrick
June 1, 2023 at 10:08 am
Hi Matthew, and thank you. Formatting for tablets has been the bane of my existence. We’ll keep working at it.
Dave
June 1, 2023 at 4:55 am
Great review thank you this is the site we have all been waiting for.
Max Steele
June 1, 2023 at 10:05 am
Great Website, thank you for the review. I am so tired of watching movies or series then get punched with a woke junk
Zulu
June 1, 2023 at 10:12 am
This movie is rubbish, I much preferd the original ! I was bored the entire time, not one single moment of fun or laughing, its like the life was totally sucked out of a classic, and what remains is completely shallow. RIP Disney.
Cari
June 1, 2023 at 11:43 am
Found out about y’all from Not the Bee. All I gotta say is that this is going to be one of my new go-to sites for movie reviews. Thanks!
Craig Mailman
June 3, 2023 at 11:40 pm
et tu brute?
Mimzy B.
June 1, 2023 at 12:39 pm
I’m not sure my redheaded blue eyed daughter in law who spent endless time as “Ariel” or her redhaired blue eyed daughter will ever get over the perception by Disney that making something modern means changing characters to fulfill an ESG requirement. Why would actors of color be content with second hand productions. Will we be seeing a live action remake of “Mulan” or “Princess And the Frog” featuring white actresses in the lead roles? I doubt it. And that’s what makes this so ridiculous. Disney writers, along with movie productions at large, seem totally bereft of anything resembling original ideas. POC actors, ALL actors should start demanding original scripts with good plots and wonderful characters as opposed to the superhero, CGI infused trash we’ve ben inflicted with the past ten years. I used to be a movie critic in college. I took many film history courses. I used to LOVE going to the movies. Nothing offered recently even remotely appeals to me. “Ford vs. Ferrari” was the last film I saw in a theater.
wokerati
June 1, 2023 at 12:46 pm
The Little WokeMaid.
Pete
June 1, 2023 at 1:04 pm
Love the website, reviews, etc.! A very much needed place for those who are not interested in all the leftist insanity. However, please run a spell-check before posting, as there are numerous spelling errors. Also, multiple grammatical and punctuation errors which made this otherwise enjoyable and helpful content hard to read.
Chris Miller
June 1, 2023 at 1:20 pm
Thanks for convincing me to go see the movie this weekend!
Chewchew
October 16, 2023 at 9:35 am
You already were planning to watch it. This website isn’t the first to come up, which is why you had to look for it.
Anyway, the movie flopped so you can cope about it.
Samui Lizard
June 1, 2023 at 1:22 pm
Love the site so far. Great Idea.
Really enjoy James Carrick’s writing style and subtle humor.
Keep up the good work!
I am not WOKE
June 1, 2023 at 1:44 pm
My new “go to “ site!
Just read about this site at DailyMail. I’m taking a humanities course and the lazy professor usually has 1-2 movies for us to watch, then has us write a 500 page summary based on his ‘woke’ agenda he’s pushing.
From here on out, I’m copying and pasting these comments and will skip the woke crap Hollywood is spoon feeding us.
The movie this week is ‘Reality’ on MAX? We get MAX free in our dorms so he’s making us watch it.
Can you possibly do a woke article one it so I won’t have to watch?
TYIA
Joy
June 1, 2023 at 2:14 pm
Great idea! I’ll be visiting here instead of Imbd, fno.
Pauly
June 1, 2023 at 8:34 pm
Cool website, glad I found it! Makes finding things to watch so much easier for me and my family!
Carl Slater
June 2, 2023 at 5:43 am
Hey James – loving the site – just read the Mermaid review and it was laugh-out-loud funny, and also making some good points – despite the fact that family films are not what I’ normally be interested in. Can’t wait to check out the other reviews. Is there/will there be an option eventually to donate to the site? Just a couple of suggestions – in the review, should not “bate” be “bait” – and Caribbean is spelled one time with just one “B”. Keep up the great work !
Jon
June 2, 2023 at 8:59 am
Although all these woke criticisms may be correct I must admit one would have to be looking really hard to notice all of that and none of it do I find really concerning. I’m just thankful Ariel didn’t fall for the prince’s sister.
Teresa
June 2, 2023 at 5:15 pm
Thank you for your review. I appreciate your candor and opinions. It helps me decide if a show is good for our family. Cheers.
Tina Mallory
June 5, 2023 at 1:33 pm
This movie might not be a complete flop, it’s made nearly 300M at the box office so far. Their budget was 400M I think, they need at least 500M they’ll probably get it back, who knows. Anyways, you know what would have ensured they make their money back and triple their profit, how about casting a white Ariel like the first? I can’t watch anymore black people in movies. I’m sick of them pushing their woke BS down my throat. Loved the fresh prince in the 90s and anything Will Smith, now it’s just all preachy crap and every black person has to go on some rant about white priveledge. Ugh. People can’t hire white people in hollywood now anymore. It all goes to diversity quotos so really funny non-minorities aren’t getting hired. Who TF is privledged???
James Carrick
June 5, 2023 at 2:53 pm
Just to be clear, neither I nor this site has anything against black people being in films and tv shows. Not even a little bit. We simply disagree with hitting any actor for any reason other than they are the best person for the role. Further, we generally disagree with the practice of changing the race of a long established character for no reason other than virtue signalling. Meritocracy or bust.
Hilary Sparten
June 5, 2023 at 1:44 pm
This site is great along with gab.com If Hollywood would just wake up and realise woke is not where it’s at.
Dk
June 7, 2023 at 11:25 am
All too often, if you say that you don’t like Halle Bailey as Ariel, people will accuse you of racism. This is intellectually dishonest and beyond disgusting. As a result, people are afraid to say anything negative about her performance.
There have been many negative reviews of the live-action movie. Even in these reviews though, the authors frequently tack on “Oh, but Halle Bailey was fantastic!” or words to that effect, Maybe they truly mean that. In light of her mediocre acting and some odd singing choices though, I suspect that they feel the need for some over-the-top praise to avoid being labelled as racists.
James Carrick
June 7, 2023 at 12:09 pm
I thought she sucked, which had nothing to do with her melanin levels.
Zeerin
June 10, 2023 at 1:36 pm
I have seen so many people claiming Bailey is a fantastic singer, one of the best out there, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how they’re coming to that opinion. I haven’t listened to a lot of her singing, just Part of that World, but in that she’s constantly out of pitch with the song and she turns into a screech during the extended high note at the end. Whereas the guy singing as Sebastian in the new Scuttle song did an amazing job, imo, and I haven’t seen anyone praising his singing the way they have Bailey’s.
Fargoth Ur
June 19, 2023 at 9:34 am
This site is a threat to the establishment. The owner is either going to be disappeared or have his site taken down by tortuous interference.
James Carrick
June 19, 2023 at 9:50 am
I’d like to choose door number 3, please.
TrulyWoke
June 20, 2023 at 2:53 pm
So the only actor that you praise is white? You might not think you’re racist but you absolutely are. Pathetic.
James Carrick
June 20, 2023 at 3:36 pm
“It’s no small irony that the only actor who has anything resembling a standout emotional moment that connects on any level is Jessica Alexander, a relative unknown with a smattering of mostly one-off TV episodes to her credit, who briefly plays Ursula’s human alter-ego, Vanessa.”
High praise indeed.
TrulyWoke
June 20, 2023 at 5:00 pm
You’re obviously not an objective reviewer (or else this trashbin of a site wouldnt exist) but to claim that Halle Bailey’s voice isn’t amazingly beautiful or that her performance wasn’t at least decent shows that you are just mad because a fictional mythical creature wasn’t portrayed by a white person.
James Carrick
June 20, 2023 at 6:38 pm
It’s always such a shame to see the failure of the public school system on full display.
My review doesn’t mention her voice once. That is because it was adequate to the task yet completely overshadowed by her dismally flat performance in addition to the rest of the film’s prodigious mediocrity.
It’s fortunate for both of us that you can visit virtually every other review website on the net to ease your emotional wedgie with their confirmation of your particular bias.
Jay Leigh
June 22, 2023 at 7:44 pm
@TrulyWoke So people who don’t share your opinion that Halle Bailey’s voice is “amazingly beautiful” must be racist?
And yet you’re in the so-called party of “tolerance.” 😂
stan
June 29, 2023 at 5:51 pm
Hey, looks like Caleb is back, or one of his “they/them” psycho blue-haired alter egos. Shame. And you are tone def as well, good thing your not a music producer or a producer of anything (i hope)
Concerned parent
June 21, 2023 at 3:49 pm
Thanks for this website, I hope you can keep it up and actually grow it. I even turned off adblocks for it and will keep coming back.
I have seen enough of the movie, pieces here and there on youtube, to know this is top woke BS.
And it is no surprise Disney is only disappointing on box office.
In 20 years people will still be watching the original Aladdin, Lion Kind, etc, while these live action adaptations will be nothing more than a side note.
Liberalism Is A Disease
June 21, 2023 at 4:06 pm
To all the Calebs of the world who feel their life is incomplete unless they have a cause to march for and something they can be a victim of (or on behalf of people who don’t want a champion like the Calebs of the world) – get a life! Get out of your moms basement, clean up the Cheetos stain on your shirt, finish up the PB&J mom made for you and see what sunshine really looks like in person.
I like the idea of this site but the site is a bit cumbersome to navigate IMHO. That being said, I appreciate that it’s here because I think people are getting more woke-fatigued every day, liberals just try to wear you down and brainwash you and all they achieve is wearing you out and making you dislike or downright hate people you never gave two squirts about before they tried to shove their agenda down your throat.
Jay Leigh
June 22, 2023 at 7:47 pm
Another great review, James!
New Member suggestion: Can you add a ‘like’ option to readers’ comments? Some of these comments are gold and I don’t have the time to reply to them but would love to validate the authors’ words with a quick thumbs up.
James Carrick
June 22, 2023 at 8:23 pm
Thanks Jay.
We’ll add the suggestion to our list.
Bob Barker
June 26, 2023 at 4:42 am
I don’t see how non-whites are empowered with woke movies like this, where the writers, directors and producers decide to change the original story to fit their world view.
As a Native American, I can tell you that I find it extremely offensive that Hollywood changes characters to fit their notion of the story; if it’s a light-skinned character, keep it that way. If I see a Native American in a movie, there is absolutely no way that I want to see a token, derivative version of an established character, we are powerful on our own. We shouldn’t need to be validated by tokenism, which demeans the character and the actor/actress who play that character and, as a result, their entire race.
ChoketheWoke
July 1, 2023 at 10:55 pm
Racist garbage. Another theft from a Caucasian, European creator, twisted and perverted into a vessel designed to carry Woke propaganda.
If you care about fighting Wokeism, don’t support Disney. Ever.
James Carrick
July 3, 2023 at 7:01 pm
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/04/1115539492/coral-great-barrier-reef-australia
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/parts-australias-great-barrier-reef-show-highest-coral-cover-36-years-2022-08-04/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-62402891
From now on, we’ll try to only use sources of which you approve.;)
Not sure why you think you’re owed an explanation of our business practices beyond that of our privacy policy.
OneOfFew
July 10, 2023 at 11:14 pm
Sources of which *I* approve? Senseless sarcasm aside, go ahead and look at the ‘mediabiasfactcheck.com’ links I included in my original comment and realize how, unsurprisingly, there happen to be sources which try to stay (and are, *at large*, considered to be) “neutral” and others which are much more biased. It’s not about what me or you thunk, it’s about what “is known to be”.
Wanna convince others (possibly even outside of your target audience) that your point of view is a fair and respectable one? Then, in my opinion, it makes sense to at least try a little bit harder than just copy-pasting links of factually questionable right-wing blogs when trying to provide support your claims. But hey: each to their own.
Regarding your last paragraph, fair enough: it is stated that the it is within the user’s rights for their information be deleted, so nothing I can really complain about.
Shazza
July 5, 2023 at 9:19 am
How is this only 38/100 .mermaid is black! Its easily a 10 or below for wokeness
Phylothinker
July 6, 2023 at 12:27 pm
I came across this website through an article in a newspaper and I just hit the nail in the head. This is what I was looking for.
My wife is black and she thinks that this nonsense of twisting scripts and changing backgrounds of the characters to talk about activism and ideology is quite forced. With this poor quality storytelling we don’t want our young kid to watch it in a near or far future.
We are left wing, however, increasingly becoming right with this society we are creating.
Thanks for all the refreshing reviews.
stan
July 6, 2023 at 1:08 pm
damn you sound triggered, did your mom forget to add sugar to your cornflakes? seriously, people like you really need to get out of their deluded bubble, walk in the sunshine a bit, and actually smell some fresh air, instead of the stale air of their own self-flatulence. no one owes you an explanation for anything, and no one asked you either. and p.s. if you have an issue with the email address requirement, why did you post the comment anyway, seriously.
OneOfFew
July 10, 2023 at 11:23 pm
“no one asked you either”
Imagine writing a whole paragraph complaining about someone who’s put forth their opinion and asked questions under a blog that allows comments, all while giving back absolutely nothing of any use towards the discussion.
If I were to be the triggered one, then what are you?
Cry harder.
TruthSeeker
July 10, 2023 at 3:18 pm
But how is this movie “woke” or indoctrinating?? I read the whole thing to find this out and all I read was about races, politics and Ariel being the one to rescue Eric. Nothing about genders or gay/trans agenda…or am I in the wrong site? I need this info to see if I expose my child to the woke agenda.
James Carrick
July 10, 2023 at 4:51 pm
We list all instances of the radical Leftist agenda that we find, including Disney’s (and others) “not-so-secret gay agenda.” If we didn’t list it in the WOKE ELEMENTS section of a particular review, we didn’t see an instance of it in the film.
Statistik Witan Sulaeman
August 2, 2023 at 7:16 am
Nice Information. Inspiring. Thank you
Statistik Witan Sulaeman
August 2, 2023 at 7:17 am
Go Mermaid cartoon version
Addriano
August 16, 2023 at 6:54 pm
THIS MOVIE LOOKS REALLY REALLY BAD
Dude
September 17, 2023 at 12:55 am
The starfish in the Pacific Ocean are thriving because they do so under warmer climate, i.e. global warming is the cause, and them eating more coral is what is happening. Not sure how you can dismiss this as being a conspiracy theory but I suppose there is nothing we can do about global warming anyway if you ask me, especially with failures like the UN in general and China pollution willingly without anyone being able to control them.