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| Available at Amazon.com |
It’s become inevitable that every Disney movie will have direct to DVD sequels. Most of them aren’t worth your time with inferior storylines, shotty animation, and really poor musical numbers. As a lifetime Disney fan, I usually don’t look forward to these sequels. I had higher hopes for Ariel’s Beginning though, since The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea is one of the better Disney sequels in my opinion. I loved the reverse storytelling, with Ariel’s daughter Melody wanting to become a mermaid. I was hoping that Disney would continue the trend that they started with The Little Mermaid II and that they’ve continued as recently as last year’s Cinderella III: A Twist in Time. Unfortunately, this one feels more like the disappointing Aladdin II or The Lion King II. Thank goodness this is the last of the “dreck-to-DVD” sequels.
The storyline is incredibly basic: Ariel’s mother, Athena, is a music lover and encourages the entire kingdom of Atlantica to enjoy music. When she is killed suddenly, King Triton is so saddened that he banishes any and all music from the kingdom. When Ariel is older, she sneaks out of her bedroom at night and finds a hidden music club. She comes back home and tells her sisters of her adventures and they beg her to let them tag along. Their father finds them and once again, banishes music, putting the musicians at the club in jail. They make their escape from jail, with Ariel, but decide to return to Atlantica to remind King Triton of his wife and to help him remember how much he loved music.
Same as with The Little Mermaid II, there’s a female villain who bears resemblance to Ursula the Sea Witch. In Ariel’s Beginning, her name is Marina Del Ray and she’s the governess to King Triton’s seven daughters. She’s basically a glorified baby-sitter and desperately wants out of her dead end job. The position she covets is currently being held by Sebastian, and she’ll do everything she can to sabotage his repor with King Triton. Marina del Ray plays second fiddle to the musical plot of this story. She only shows up every once in awhile and sings some of the most terrible Disney songs ever written. I was shocked to learn that Marina Del Ray is voiced by Sally Field. Oh, and of course the villian has to have a sidekick. In this story, the sidekick is a loveable manatee named Benjamin. He’d be much more cute if you could actually understand what he was saying. Everything comes out a mumble and I lost interest in him after he’d been onscreen for two minutes.
Other than an unrecognizable Sally Field, you will recognize most of the other voices. Jodi Benson returns as Ariel, and Samuel E. Wright reprises his role as Sebastian. It was really nice hearing the original voice actors in these roles. The biggest change is Jim Cummings stepping in as King Triton. If the name doesn’t sound familiar to you, his voice will. He’s been the voice of: Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Darkwing Duck, Bonkers, and countless others, and has lent his voice to several movies and TV shows including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Bee Movie. His voice is so familiar that it just didn’t have the booming authority that I remember Triton having. Especially when he yells at Ariel, he sounds…funny.
A little over a year ago, Disney decided to disband its direct to DVD sequel business with The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning set up to be the last one released. I only wish they could have gone out with more of a bang than this. The story is tired, the villain is just thrown in, the songs are atrocious. Oh and the songs! The big song and dance number at the secret club is “Shake Shake Shake Senora”, yes the same song at the end of Beetlejuice. It’s not even an original! The potential in the Little Mermaid world is so great, they just didn’t do anything with it. This was a very disappointing effort by Disney. I’m so glad these will be over with…for now anyway.
The DVD is presented in widescreen, with the option of English, Spanish or French subtitles. The picture quality is infinitely better than some of the other direct to DVD sequels.
Music and More – A section of the extras in which you can play each of the four songs in the movie separately and you have the option to watch with the lyrics on the screen.
Games and Activities:
Mermaid Discovery Vanity Game – A “game” that takes you to the girls dressing room to see each of their vanities. You can click around on various objects at each girls vanity that will tell you more about them.
Backstage Disney:
Splashdance: A Dancer’s Adventures Under the Sea – A featurette about the director, Peggy Holmes, who has been well known in the Disney community as a dancer and choreographer. This (7:21) feature is narrated by Ms. Holmes and she talks about how being a dancer has directly influenced the way she directs this film.
The Little Mermaid: Under the Sea & Behind the Scenes on Broadway – Being the Broadway geek like I am, I could have watched this featurette all day long. Sadly, it’s only 10:25 minutes long and takes us on a backstage tour of the Broadway production of The Little Mermaid. We get to see costumes, make-up, and snippets from several musical numbers.
Deleted Scenes – There are two roughly sketched deleted scenes that really have no impact on the story whatsoever. As shallow as this may sound, I rarely enjoy deleted scenes from an animated film because you have to watch them not fully animated, and sometimes they don’t have the voices either. It just seems weird to me that they’d be included with a DVD release. Just my opinion.
Previews: Sleeping Beauty Platinum Edition, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea, Tinkerbell (yup, she’s getting her own movie), The Secret of the Magic Gourd, and a commercial for Disney Movie Rewards
The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning or “The Little Mermaid III”, is one to skip unless you have small children in your household already begging to see it. If you’re an adult who grew up with The Little Mermaid and have curiosity about this one, I wouldn’t recommend it.
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Walt Disney Video presents The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning. Directed by Peggy Holmes. Starring Jodi Benson, Sally Field, Samuel E Wright, Jim Cummings. Written by Robert Reece. Running time: 77 minutes. Rated Not Rated. Released on DVD: August 26, 2008. Available at Amazon.com.
About Jenny Rebekah
