'The Little Mermaid' is Disney's best live-action remake yet. Yes, really

“The Little Mermaid,” Disney's latest live-action remake, is surprisingly good. In fact, it is the best one yet.

Director Rob Marshall and the whole creative team succeed in the delicate balancing act of copying scenes directly from the 1989 animated feature and adding new scenes and songs. Looking at previous remakes, the majority have been so-so to bad to downright awful. (I’m looking at you “Mulan.”)

Like sequels, these remakes are trying to cash in on the nostalgia of some of Disney’s best-known classics. But unlike franchise films, these have to find that sweet spot between ripping off the original shot-for-shot and sprinkling in something new, and then hope that audiences will appreciate the new along with the original.

“The Little Mermaid” has taken on all the experience and technological advances of depicting ocean worlds, from the 1989 film to “Lilo and Stitch” and “Finding Nemo” to the remake of “The Lion King,” with its hyper-realism, and applied it with a master’s brush. That is to say, the visuals in this movie are stunning. The colors, the hyperrealism and the new advances in animation combined with a killer cast are just … chef’s kiss.

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Halle Bailey captures Ariel's curious spirit. And sings great!

A note on the new advances: somehow Disney’s animators managed to make all the mermaids' hair look like it is underwater. The gentle zero-gravity effect was just so perfect that it looks real. Even the details of sand swirling and falling underwater looked convincing. Not to mention that they managed to get all the actors' CGI tails to appear seamless.

And speaking of the cast, it’s rare to see a film where all the actors match their roles so well. Halle Bailey as Ariel not only captures the mermaid’s curious spirit, but she sings so well, too! In fact, she sounded uncannily like Jodi Benson, who voiced the original animated Ariel.

But the best part of Bailey’s performance is that she injected more fullness into the character, meaning she gave Ariel some agency that the cartoon version lacked. It’s subtle, but between Bailey’s performance and Marshall’s guidance, Ariel doesn’t come across as a dumb teenager. Instead, her naïveté fits with the character but she’s also thinking. She doesn’t just want to give up her world for love. She wants to grow and experience all that the world has to offer.

This Ariel makes mistakes, but realizes it in a much more mature way. And it feels less like a girl running away to be with a guy and more like choosing to expand her horizons, which just happens to include a guy.

Speaking of the guy, Jonah Hauer-King looks exactly like Prince Eric from the cartoon. But unlike his animated predecessor, this Prince Eric gets his own song! Fitting for an actor who started off as a singer. Like Ariel, Eric has more going on in his head than crickets and daydreams. His goal is to reopen his country to the world and bring advancement to it. His island nation has been closed off for some time due to treacherous seas.

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Javier Bardem, Daveed Diggs and Melissa McCarthy also shine

Both King Triton (Javier Bardem) and Queen Selina (Noma Dumezweni) are protective of their children. Both say the other world is dangerous. Stay home, be content with what you have. But it’s an overtly xenophobic message. Triton and Selina are two sides of the same coin.

Daveed Diggs voices Sebastian who, thankfully, is not too creepy looking. In fact, hats off again to the animation team for managing to get the holographic crab eye look while still making him friendly in appearance. (The biologists out there will know what I mean.) Diggs gives this Sebastian his characteristic Jamaican accent, and it works. Not to mention Diggs has a fantastic voice of his own.

Jacob Tremblay voices Flounder. Again, not too creepy looking. But the surprise voice is Awkwafina as Scuttle, who is not a seagull in this movie, but rather a Northern Gannet diving bird. And it works. Honestly, anything Awkwafina touches is gold, and Scuttle is no exception. (Best new song: “The Scuttlebutt,” sung by Awkwafina.)

Melissa McCarthy slips into Urusla’s slimy tentacles. This Ursula is one of the most impressive characters on screen. McCarthy is such a strong actress that she could have overpowered Bailey’s performance. But Marshall again uses his guiding hand to give the sea witch just an inch, and she didn’t “swim all over” the scenes she is in. And while you’d expect some more laughs from the villain, given who’s playing her, Ursula is kept mostly evil, with only a hint of McCarthy showing through. But again, it works!

When this “Little Mermaid” was first announced and Halle Bailey was revealed to be the star, the internet went wild in some despicable ways. But a note on diversity in this film: It’s everywhere and it feels right.

All of Ariel’s sisters reflect the seas they rule. One is from the Indian Ocean and is Indian. Another is from the more Nordic regions and she looks and sounds like a Norse mermaid. Another is East Asian and another clearly from African oceans. It’s beautiful, actually. The various cultures are subtly shown, not only in the casting but in their tail and scale designs. They not only match the human regions of their oceans, but in many ways the fish, too.

The number of aquatic species is also off the charts. Clearly, having a nature-documentary wing in its arsenal has prepared Disney animators to add all kinds of new fish. There are feather worms, brittle stars, Spanish dancer slugs, mimic octopi and so many more interesting creatures. And most were done correctly. Only a marine biologist might be able to spot the inaccuracies.

“The Little Mermaid” delivers on every front and will likely be one of the summer’s biggest box-office winners.

'The Little Mermaid' 5 stars

Great ★★★★★ Good ★★★★

Fair ★★★ Bad ★★ Bomb ★

Director: Rob Marshall

Cast: Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King, Daveed Diggs, Jacob Tremblay, Melissa McCarthy, Awkwafina

Rating: PG for action/peril and some scary images

How to watch: In theaters May 26

Contact Kaely Monahan at kaely.monahan@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on our podcasts Valley 101 and The Gaggle, and on Twitter @KaelyMonahan.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 'The Little Mermaid' review: The best Disney live-action remake ever