The Little Mermaid

It's not as if I dislike Burbank Animation Studios, there has been stuff of theirs I have liked quite a lot, like Count of Monte Cristo, White Fang and Hansel and Gretel. Their version of The Little Mermaid is not as bad as their Hercules and D4:The Trojan Dog. Miranda's song about 7 minutes or so in is very cute, other than that it was rather charmless and I much preferred the Disney, Golden Films and anime versions. The animation is not the worst I've seen from Burbank Animation Studios, the backgrounds are not bad looking, but at the same the colours(especially for the sea) could have done with more vibrancy, the bad princess(Clarissa is it?) is made to look unattractive which was very stereotypical and the sea witch just looked weird. I liked Miranda's song, but the background music not so much, it was too grand for the animation and sounded too elevator music-like. The dialogue is trite and cheesy, any kind of humour attempted fell flat and I felt no real emotional connection with anything the characters said. The story had the basic details of the fairy tale but suffered from the story being generally rushed and additional scenes dragging it down. I had no problem with there being a happy ending but it came at a time where I frankly had given up on trying to care for the characters, who have no depth to them at all(especially the prince). The voice work- with the narrator being the sole exception- also manages to be truly obnoxious, of Burbank Animation Studios' output only D4:The Trojan Dog for me had worse. The worst case was Miranda's, it really grated on the ears on how painful it was to listen to. Her singing voice is better on the ear, but didn't fit the character. Overall, not timeless in the least, has one cute song but that's it. 2/10 Bethany Cox