The Little Mermaid

Time is rarely kind. What was once considered great tends to suffer for growing old. So it seems with this work. It may have wowed audiences back in 1989, but watching this flick today, one is struck by how pedestrian the presentation seems. Partly that’s a product of the technical, computer-generated wizardry that has become so ubiquitous these days in animation; partly, though, it feels like this movie was celebrated due to low expectations. It is perhaps a measure of how far Disney had fallen that, at that point, a film that by today's standard comes across as little more than a Saturday morning cartoon could serve as the revitalization and foundation of a media empire. Strange things do happen, and fairy tales do come true, in a sense. I guess this one proves it.