Yes, I shall finally be looking at several Disney knock-offs, specifically from the infamous Golden Films Studios (also known as Goodtimes Entertainment)! And no, I won't be looking at the Video Brinquedo movies quite yet because that would be way too many to do all at once! To be honest, there really isn't much facts about this movie other than that this was released in 1992 obviously meant to cash in on Disney's 1989 phenomenal blockbuster The Little Mermaid! And after lawsuits involving their versions of Beauty and the Beast, the company had to show their logo on the covers of their movies to prevent them from tricking customers into thinking that their movie was Disney's infinitely more popular version. So will GoldenFilm's version of the Hans Christian Andersen tale be as fun as Ariel's under the sea adventure, or should this be washed away like the sands of time? Let's. Take. A. Look.
Story: As predicted, this is a rip off of Disney's version of the Hans Christian Andersen tale with a few changes here & there. However, none are for the better because the pacing & 'emotional' stakes in this are virtually non-existent! It is incredibly slow up to the point that what should have been the middle when Lena turns into a human by Cassandra (yeah, great name choice!) is instead near the end & literally every scene feels like it's taking forever. They never give time to actually do something while waiting for the next turn of the plot to show up sporadically & yet it still does nothing to give us insight to the characters! I guess it does have more references to the original fairytale & a tad of self awareness, but all of that is completely negated by the stupidity of the characters & how abrupt scenes are because the movie never takes time to explain the premise nor give us any context. It just immediately assumes you know the Disney movie (bear in mind this was released 3 years after Disney's take) & that's all you need going into this! And unlike the Disney movie (besides the soundtrack bizarrely being various pieces of classical music for no apparent reason), the romance between Lena & Stephan NEVER gives them a sense of actual love or even chemistry. It's literally she saves him, they meet when she's human, a brief conflict (this time with an arranged marriage to another princess which is quickly resolved) & then they get married without a single word of dialogue between them! Seriously, even freaking Disney's Snow White & her Prince at the very least had a song between them before they declared their true love! When one of the most underdeveloped Disney couples ever has more of a romance than this mess, you know you're in trouble! Anyway, the direction, pacing, story & 'emotions' of are just an absolute farce & the best word to describe this movie is...boring!
Animation: As expected given that it was direct to video, the animation quality reflects that. It looks like a Saturday morning cartoon, except a bit worse & while I don't want to blame the animators themselves because of the quality, it's still pretty clear that they wanted this quickly done. The character designs clearly try to 'emulate' Disney rather it be with their colour scheme (except for Lena for obvious reasons) or the way they're drawn except they're much more basic & it gets frustrating because the character models can change scene after scene or even during cuts (and with duplicates as background characters). The relationship between the character animation and backgrounds is virtually non-existent up to the point that the merfolk look more like they're floating in mid-air rather than swimming or whenever they walk, the backgrounds don't sync together with the speed of them. And yes, it does look glitchy sometimes when the characters move & it doesn't really help that the lip syncing is very off & they don't sometimes even convey the emotions of the voice actor i.e. looking happy when sounding angry! Add in no sense of depth of lighting, badly painted & designed backgrounds & replaying little clips to drag the running time, the animation in this can just be qualified as lazy.
Characters: If you thought the story was a rip off of the Disney version, then you haven't seen anything yet with these characters. Princess Lena, the titular mermaid in this, is just a 'bubbly' cretin that's bland & irritating with absolutely no development or likeablity. Yes, I may have a few problems with Ariel (in particular her selfishness), but at the very least she had something called a personality, her enthusiastic nature did have a limit & she actually acknowledged whenever she had made mistakes! The dolphin Vink (I think that's his name) is just a rip-off of Flounder & this time round is Lena's royal pet who follows her around, goes along with what she wants, constantly worries & tries to convince her not to act like a brat & do the right thing. Cassandra is the Ursula rip-off but instead is part eel & unlike the latter, doesn't even appear let alone get mentioned after she transforms Lena into a human & explains the consequences of what would happen to her if the Prince didn't marry her. It doesn't really help that her motives for being evil are barely explained & she's pretty much only there for Lena to find a way to become human & for the movie to have a bad guy! Prince Stephan (obviously the Prince Eric expy) has absolutely no personality at all either & his character design is so much like Eric that they didn't even try to hide it! Lena's sisters do appear a bit more compared to the Disney movie, with Tris being the most prominent one, yet she's just the generic loving sister. The Sea King is the Triton expy both in design & the character trait of just yelling at his daughter being all overprotective & is the one to cause the conflict at the end for no apparent reason. Yes, there are a couple of other characters like the discount Grimsby & Princess Anna (not from Arendelle thankfully), those 2 bird friends & discount Flotsam & Jetsam, but they don't have personalities either so there's really no point in discussing them. Every single character either has one character trait or none whatsoever & they really are the most grating part of this dull & lifeless movie!
The Little Mermaid is easily the most boring adaptation of the story. Even if there are a few bits that are different (although not so subtly), it's undoubtedly a copy of the Disney version except with no emotions, depth or charm. The story just drags on with no context, the animation is lazy & the characters have absolutely no dimensionality to them. It's just a soulless cashgrabber meant to fool people into buying this over Disney's far superior version which has much more appealing & dimensional characters, stunning animation, unforgettable songs & an actual engaging plot! I don't even think I need to say to skip this film & watch the Disney version over it because this is just a massive waste of time! How I feel sorry for the poor clueless people that bought this back in the 90s...
Story: 2/10
Animation: 2/10
Characters: 1/10
Overall: 2/10
Yes, I shall finally be looking at several Disney knock-offs, specifically from the infamous Golden Films Studios (also known as Goodtimes Entertainment)! And no, I won't be looking at the Video Brinquedo movies quite yet because that would be way too many to do all at once! To be honest, there really isn't much facts about this movie other than that this was released in 1992 obviously meant to cash in on Disney's 1989 phenomenal blockbuster The Little Mermaid! And after lawsuits involving their versions of Beauty and the Beast, the company had to show their logo on the covers of their movies to prevent them from tricking customers into thinking that their movie was Disney's infinitely more popular version. So will GoldenFilm's version of the Hans Christian Andersen tale be as fun as Ariel's under the sea adventure, or should this be washed away like the sands of time? Let's. Take. A. Look.
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