The Little Mermaid

By Richard Corliss | June 23, 2011 | +

Everett

Director: Ron Clements, John Musker

Year Released: 1989

Cast: Rene Auberjonois, Christopher Daniel Barnes, Jodi Benson, Pat Carroll, Buddy Hackett, Jason Marin, Kenneth Mars, Samuel E. Wright

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When Disney animation boss Jeffrey Katzenberg teamed writer-directors Ron Clements and John Musker (who later did Aladdin, Hercules and The Princess and the Frog) with songwriters Alan Menken and Howard Ashman (Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin), he birthed the studio’s first renaissance feature. Here was everything that mostly had been missing in the two decades since Walt’s death: an assured lightness in the narrative, a blending of classic and contemporary design and a sheaf of catchy songs that could command the top of the pops while lodging in older fans’ internal jukeboxes. For the next five years, until Katzenberg left the company and formed DreamWorks, Disney animated features were among the smartest films around and proved that the Hollywood cartoon had become the last, best refuge of the Broadway musical.

From the first moments, when the mermaid Ariel (voiced and sung by Jodi Benson) dreams of being part of the world above, to an ending that comes with flourishes, a rainbow and a perfect kiss with full heartstring accompaniment, this fish-out-of-water fable is a model of buoyancy and poignancy. Updating the Hans Christian Andersen tale about the prince and the sea creature — basically, boy meets gill — Musker and Clements inserted a modest political message (similar to those of Finding Nemo and Happy Feet) that pegs humans as, in the words of Ariel’s father, “spineless, savage, harpooning fish eaters.” But those are so many bubbles in this effervescent delight. The film’s vocal, musical and painterly talents mesh ecstatically in the big water-ballet production number “Under the Sea.” As Sebastian the crab (Samuel E. Wright) limns the aquatic virtues, a Noah’s aquarium of sea creatures animates a joyous Busby Berkeley palette. And that’s just one of many highlights in 82 min. of canny magic.

Next: Finding Nemo

Related Topics: Disney, Family, Fantasy, John Musker, Ron Clements, The Little Mermaid

Finding Nemo

By Richard Corliss | June 23, 2011 | +

Everett

Director: Andrew Stanton

Year Released: 2003

Cast: Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Willem Dafoe, Alexander Gould, Allison Janney, Barry Humphries, Brad Garrett, Geoffrey Rush

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Marlin the clown fish (voiced by Albert Brooks) is a fussy little anxiety machine. When he learns he’s to be a father of 400 babies, he fidgets: “What if they don’t like me?” But he’s right to be concerned for his brood in the fish-eat-fish world of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. A shark devours Marlin’s wife and 399 of her eggs. That leaves little Nemo (Alexander Gould) — the one survivor, handicapped by an underdeveloped fin — and Marlin, burdened with an overdeveloped sense of dread. When Nemo is old enough to go to school (of fish), Dad’s pessimism is again validated: the lad defiantly swims into open water and is kidnapped. Marlin must conquer his own fear of the great wet world, that “swirling vortex of terror.” But he has a companion in his search: Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), a blue tang with a sunny disposition and a short-term-memory problem.

The Pixar pixies always fashion funny, poignant stories to match their gorgeous computer images, and this time they hit the jackpot, in a lost-child saga told from the searching father’s point of view. With its ravishing underwater fantasia, Nemo trumps the design glamour of earlier Pixar films. The dramatic set pieces — Marlin and Dory eluding jellyfish stings, Nemo’s claustrophobic panic in a plastic bag — are realized with assured energy and balanced by the voice artists’ deft comic performances. Writer-director Andrew Stanton provides artistic and political resonances galore: he alludes to favorite movies, from Pinocchio to Psycho, and fearlessly takes on the powerful pet-shop and aquarium lobbies. There is also the secret insignia of any Pixar feature: a G-rated fart joke. Nemo was the highest-grossing CGI feature of its time and is one of two animated features on the All-TIME 100 movie list. It was, and remains, a serene marine enchantment.