Link to Last Week’s Part: The Disneyathon: The Direct to Blog Sequel – Part 7: An Extremely Goofy Movie
Link to my Little Mermaid (1989) Review: The Disneyathon – Part 11: The Disney Renaissance
Alright, back to leaching off the popular movies you all know and love. The Little Mermaid hasn’t been ruined yet, so let’s do that one next.
I remember watching The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea as a child, but I must have suppressed the memories of what actually happened because this movie is so dumb! Following in the same path as Simba, the ever so lovable Ariel also had a daughter, which only means Ariel is going to wind up being an overprotective parent too. (Wonderful!) It all started when Ariel’s baby girl, Melody, was almost kidnapped by Ursula’s unheard of 2.0 sister. I’m not kidding, the main villain of this movie is literally Ursula again, down to the exact same plan and voice actress, with the only differences being that this one is skinny and isn’t purple skinned.
Anyway, the attack convinces Ariel that she has to hide the existence of merpeople from Melody along with walling off the entire palace from the sea in order to keep her safe. Yet this does nothing because years later an adolescent Melody regularly visits the ocean to swim and discover treasure and stuff without anyone knowing!! Except for Sebastian who was tasked by King Triton to watch over his granddaughter, because he clearly hasn’t learned his lesson from one movie ago. This whole movie is built upon stupid logic and giant misunderstandings. Ariel’s parenting is questionable to say the least and she could have easily resolved this movie’s entire conflict if she just told Melody the truth. She didn’t though, which I’m not too bummed about because this gave birth to my favourite scene in the movie. Melody is a mermaid thanks to Ursula 2 and now has to steal Triton’s pitchfork from his underwater palace without being seen because they’ll just tell her what’s up otherwise. So the lengths the writers pull to keep these characters apart was very amusing to me.
It’s a shame this movie’s writing is so bad, because there are some intriguing ideas here. I like that Melody’s desire to go under the sea mirrors Ariel’s in the first movie. Ariel becoming more like her father is a neat idea and maybe another Ursula villain might have worked, if the execution didn’t come off as a lazy rehash. Most of this movie feels pretty lazy, like the animation for example. It’s not terrible but it just looks boring and generic. Nothing pops, just like the music. I couldn’t name you a single song, except for the one in the end credits, because it’s a cover of A Part of Your World. The only pluses I could come up with is that it’s watchable and it’s very short. I like Melody, she’s better than Simba’s daughter and plus she’s voiced by Tara Strong, who I’m realising I’ve never mentioned on this site before, which is the real tragedy in this review. Finally, the voice acting is solid, especially from Tara and Pat Carroll who seems to be loving chewing the scenery as not Ursula.
Overall we seem to have taken a plunge since the last two reviews, which sucks. On the bright side Little Mermaid II wasn’t another Pocahontas II or as atrocious Beauty and the Beast III.
This drop in quality is the perfect time to take a break for the entirety of July, because the fatigue is setting in. I’m going to be working on some other projects for awhile, which should hopefully refresh my mind by the time we reach Friday the 6th of August where Part 9 will be released. So see you then.
The Disneyathon: The Direct to Blog Sequel Ranking List
Link to Next Week’s Part: The Disneyathon – Direct to Blog Sequel – Part 9: The Dreaded Return
