The Little Mermaid II - Return to the Sea
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Movie Reviews of The Little Mermaid II - Return to the Sea
Movie Review: Highly Disappointed
Summary: 1 Stars
Purchased as a special gift only to be informed that it is not viewable in this "region". I am very upset and want my money back.Movie Review: Little Mermaid II
Summary: 4 Stars
This movie is a continuation of The Little Mermaid. Ariel and Eric have a daughter and Melody is just as head strong and defiant as Ariel was when she was younger. And just like Ariel, that attitude gets her into trouble.Movie Review: Not great
Summary: 3 Stars
As with most Disney sequels, this movie is about the same plot as the original, a good "main" character, and not-so-great everything else. Melody was a decent character; I totally know how she feels when she says she thinks she's weird. Ariel was okay in this movie; the only thing that bugged me about her was the whole wall thing. I found Melody's two friends, the walrus and the penguin, a little annoying. I also found the songs a little annoying. Anyway, seriously, this movie is practically the same as the first in plot, except Melody doesn't fall in love with anybody.
Actually, this movie reminds me so much of Lady and the Tramp 2 it's weird. Melody is like Scamp, Ariel is like Tramp, and the "other" sea witch (whom I felt wasn't nearly as scary as Ursula and thus not as good an antagonist) is like Buster. Okay, so Melody is curious about sea life where her mother used to live, just like Scamp is curious about streetlife where his father used to live. And like Buster, the sea witch is thought to be good at first. Also similar is the fact that like Lady, Eric didn't appear much. If you don't know what on Earth I'm talking about, I suggest you go see Lady and the Tramp 2.
Anyway, like I said, the movie isn't great. I'd actually give it 2.5 stars if I could. While I was watching it I found that I was daydreaming a couple of times. In other words, it was kind of boring in some places. And I know this sounds silly, but where in the heck did the arctic ice come from? That wasn't in the last movie. Or did Melody have to swim a long way to get to the ice? It's not really that important, just a little weird. Also, I read that some people thought it was funny. I didn't find it that funny ay all. However, despite its inadequacy, the movie is actually pretty fast-paced. After I was done watching it I was like, "Um . . . that's it?" It just seemed too short. The original was neither too long nor too short. Okay, a word of advice for everyone when you're rating sequels: don't compare it to the original; if you do most likely the rating will be quite low. Trust me, I know. I rated Lady and the Tramp 2 a four, but after watching the original I wanted to go back and rate it a 3. Okay, okay, this is The Little Mermaid saga, not the Lady and the Tramp saga. I'll stop talking about it, I promise.
Overall, average as sequels go, inadequate as movies go, bad as Disney movies go.
Movie Review: I liked it...guess that makes me part of the minority
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this movie because I was on a Disney movie buying kick sometime ago. I have to say that I really like this. Some people are picking bones over the way Ariel treats her daughter. They say, "Oh, well Ariel was in the SAME situation as Melody, shouldn't she be more understanding?" Well, what if you smoked pot as a teenager? Would you be cool with letting your kid do it, too? It sounds hypocritical, but things are different when YOU are the parent. I really enjoyed this film. It's fun and it's for children. It really amuses me how some reviewers take this as an almost personal insult. Lighten up and take it for what it is: it is 75 minutes of animated entertainment that is in no way a reflection of real life or real people. The end. I like this a lot and I recommend it to parents to buy for children since it's definitely not scary to small children like the first one.Movie Review: The Power of Music and Scripting
Summary: 4 Stars
"The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea" met my expectations for a direct-to-video film. It did not exceed them nor did they fall short. The 1989 original THE LITTLE MERMAID is a very formidable film, making the artistic success for a sequel a great challenge. To its credit "The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea" did unfold in a different direction than I had anticipated. The story was not innovative but some of the particular plot situations were well thought out. In any story you have conflict and resolution and those are the aspects that I liked about this film. Some of the dramatics did rely on prior events, which took place in the original. That was thematically important to the overall story. One weakness of this film was the lack of character development. Character development was one of the strong points of THE LITTLE MERMAID. I watched "The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea" twice trying to determine if the film digressed in such a way to bolster my contention of this. What did the "The Little Mermaid" achieve in roughly the same amount of time that this film didn't? And then it struck me that it was the music or more specifically the songs in the original that advanced the story line and defined the characters. That was the brilliance of lyricist Howard Ashman. He and composer Alan Menken developed songs in the original that in several minutes clearly defined Ariel's reckless but innocent curiosity about the humans above and her yearning to discover that world. Every song in the original bolstered the characters, advanced the plot or enhanced the significance of a scene in addition to being very melodic and well written. So in THE LITTLE MERMAID we were given a substantial amount of information and entertainment in a minimum amount of time. There is not a single frame of wasted footage in that film. "The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea" does not have the advantage of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman compositions. The instrumental score is very good but the new songs feel superficial. The animation especially during the underwater scenes is good. Morgana is not as menacing as her sister Ursula was in the original. Other than Ursula I believe all the main characters are back. Melody, Ariel's daughter gets to mingle with the old characters as well as meet new ones. I thought that was significant seeing that the scriptwriters were determined not to have Melody just copy what Ariel did in the original. It would have been a very good sequel for theatrical release. If that was done, there would have been a bigger budget and the various shortcomings could have been corrected. I liked "The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea" but I did not feel it was as good as Disney's other direct-to-video, "Pocahontas II." However, I believe that "The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea" will have a definite audience with younger family members and there are actually some nostalgic moments that will no doubt attract teens and up who loved the original. I highly recommend this movie.