Perhaps Ariel should have stayed under the sea.
ABC’s “The Little Mermaid Live!” was an over-the-top, neon-filled spectacle, with grand staging and high-floating jellyfish and crabs. But the live performances proved more of an underwhelming distraction from the 1989 film, which was projected in the background for a Walt Disney Studios audience in Burbank, California, during the live production.
Auli’i Cravalho as Ariel and Graham Phillips (“The Good Wife”) as her royal plaything, Prince Eric, hit their notes and marks, but they were nearly as two-dimensional as the animation projected on-screen between numbers. And while Cravalho, who rose to fame for voicing Moana in the 2016 Disney film, gamely tried some minor high-flying acrobatics à la Pink, it turns out it’s pretty easy to get upstaged by glowing purple, green and blue jellyfish hanging from the rafters. And the two stars certainly paled in comparison to show-stopping performances by Queen Latifah as sea witch Ursula and a nearly unrecognizable John Stamos as Chef Louis.
The production was staged to honor the 30th anniversary of the Disney box-office hit, which tells the story of Ariel, a lonely mermaid who trades her voice and fins for legs so she can find her princely, blue-eyed love above ground. It merged the animated film with Alan Menken’s musical numbers from both the original film and the 2008 Broadway show, plus additional new material.
Twinning the movie with staged sets made transitions somewhat jarring, at least for TV viewers, though the switch-ups may have seemed less abrupt for the LA audience. At least the seat-fillers weren’t as loud, distracting and overly-enthusiastic as the audience for Fox’s “Rent: Live!” last January, but they did know who deserved their appreciation when they offered it.
Enter Queen Latifah as Ursula, the movie role originally voiced with raspy evil by Pat Carroll. From her elevated entrance — all tentacles and attitude — Latifah personified the animated sea witch, commanding the stage with every smirk, wave and campy glare — not to mention her powerful pipes. She was gloriously over-the-top, despite being constrained by a skintight black dress with tentacles and a sky-high wig. Fans on Twitter seemed to agree, calling her “iconique” and lauding her for stealing the show.
“Okay, nothing more to see here. Queen Latifah killed it. Everyone else can go home,” one person summed up.
Props, too, for a moustached, ponytailed Stamos, who gamely tussled with crabs and tossed food at the audience during his version of “Les Poissons.” Did he hit all his notes? Who knows! But his crazed chef was just a joy to watch.
Demonstrably less buoyant was Shaggy as Ariel’s bud, Sebastian the crab. Whether performing the show-stopping song “Under the Sea” or the catchy “Kiss the Girl,” he was an underwhelming presence: stiff and unenthusiastic in a pleather outfit straight out of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” The song needed a kick of flamboyance and ferocity by way of, say, Tituss Burgess, who played Broadway’s first Sebastian.
There were some subtle distractions, too, along the way. Did we really need the annoying alerts letting us know that “Part of Your World” and “Les Poissons” were coming up live in two minutes, or that Shaggy would launch into “Kiss the Girl” in three? Are we really that lost to attention deficit disorder that we can’t anticipate them without help?
Well, maybe. Perhaps we did need the reminders to keep paying attention since at times it was difficult to remain part of Ariel’s world.
Ref;nypost.com