Jonah Hauer-King Archives

Review: ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ (2025), starring Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, Sarah Pidgeon, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt

July 16, 2025

by Carla Hay

Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Sarah Pidgeon, Tyriq Withers and Madelyn Cline in “I Know What You Did Last Summer” (Photo by Matt Kennedy/Columbia Pictures)

“I Know What You Did Last Summer” (2025)

Directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

Culture Representation: Taking place in 2024 and 2025, in the fictional Southport, North Carolina, the horror film “I Know What You Did Last Summer” (based on the novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and multi-racial people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A group of former high school friends are targeted by a serial killer who’s dressed as a hat-wearing, masked fisherman and who knows about the friends’ secret manslaughter involvement in the accidental car death of a young man.

Culture Audience: “I Know What You Did Last Summer” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the “I Know What You Did Last Summer” franchise, and horror sequels that rely too heavily on nostalgia for earlier movies in the series.

Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. in “I Know What You Did Last Summer” (Photo by Matt Kennedy/Columbia Pictures)

The 2025 version of “I Know What You Did Last Summer” is one of several horror movie franchises (such as “Scream,” “Saw,” “The Exorcist” and “The Strangers”) that have been revived in the 2020s, in order to attract new generations of fans. The 2025 version of “I Know What You Did Last Summer” is an example of a franchise movie that goes overboard in fan-service nostalgia instead of building a creative new path. There are some plot holes, and the murder mystery is easy to solve when the body count increases. Most horror fans will find something to like about this reboot/sequel, but it’s not enough to save a movie that’s full of recycled ideas and unanswered questions.

Directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, “I Know What You Did Last Summer” was co-written by Sam Lansky and Robinson. The movie is based on Lois Duncan’s classic 1973 young-adult novel of the same name. The book was adapted into the 1997 horror film “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” which spawned the dreadful 1998 sequel “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.” The 2006 film “I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer” was released direct-to-video and had none of the characters (except for the Fisherman serial killer) that were in the first two “Last Summer” movies. There was also the 2021 short-lived Prime Video series “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” which flopped with critics and audiences.

The 2025 movie version of “I Know What You Did Last Summer” brings back at least two of the characters from the 1990s movies. In 2025’s “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” the ages have increased for the group of friends who made a pact to secretly cover up being involved in a man’s accidental death. In the 1990s movies (and in the original novel), the friends are teenagers in high school and then in college. In the 2025 version of “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” the friends are in their mid-20s, although some of them still act like teenagers in high school.

The movie begins on July 4, 2024, when Ava Brucks (played by Chase Sui Wonders) has arrived back in her hometown of Southport, North Carolina. Southport was the location of 1997’s “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” but this beach city has been transformed since the 1990s, due to gentrification. The formerly middle-class Southport is now an enclave to many affluent residents. In the movie, one of the characters describes Southport as “the Hamptons of the South.” (The 2025 movie version of “I Know What You Did Last Summer” was actually filmed in New South Wales, Australia.)

Ava (who graduated from high school in 2017) is among the people who grew up in a life of privilege in Southport. She’s also from a generation who wasn’t even born when the first wave of serial killings happened in Southport. Ava has come back to visit Southport to attend the Fourth of July engagement party of Danica Richards (played by Madelyn Cline), who was Ava’s best friend in high school.

Ava and Danica grew apart after they graduated from high school. They haven’t seen or spoken to each other in a few years because Ava stopped returning Danica’s calls and messages. Danica is engaged to marry Teddy Spencer (played by Tyriq Withers), who is the spoiled son of wealthy and powerful real-estate developer Grant Spencer (played by Billy Campbell) and his socialite wife Jill Spencer (played by Simone Annan), who is seen very briefly in the beginning of the film. Grant has a reputation for being the main reason why Southport has gentrified.

Also invited to this engagement party is someone whom Ava is somewhat nervous to see: Teddy’s best friend Milo Griffin (played by Jonah Hauer-King), who has a generic personality and who works in Washington, D.C., in some type of political job. Ava and Milo had a vague romantic attraction in high school. It seems like if Ava and Milo were ever a “couple,” it wasn’t a serious relationship, and it didn’t last. The point is that Ava and Milo are supposed to have sexual tension when they see each other again all these years later.

One of the biggest flaws in this version of “I Know You Did Last Summer” is that Ava unrealistically never mentions any of her family members when going back to her hometown. She’s seen getting dressed for the engagement party in a bedroom that is decorated the same way that she had it decorated in high school, which suggests that she’s in her former childhood bedroom. Her parents or other relatives (if she has any) are nowhere to be seen in the movie.

Ava is obviously supposed to be the movie’s main protagonist, but hardly anything is revealed about her life before and after she moved away from Southport. She never talks what she does for a living. She has limited and very superficial conversations with Danica about their friendship in high school. Ava tells Danica that she’s sorry about cutting off contact, but that’s about as revealing as their conversations go in the movie.

Danica’s family members are also invisible/non-existent in the movie. It’s a bizarre and unexplainable omission for someone who’s planning to have a lavish “high society” wedding. Danica talks a lot about shallow things, but not once does she mention who her family is. Danica might as well have been plopped into the movie like she got lost on the way to a “Real Housewives” reality show audition.

As the enagement party ends that night, the four reunited pals (Ava, Danica, Teddy and Milo) decide to continue their tradition of watching Fourth of July fireworks from a cliffside view. Teddy is ready to get very drunk and stoned. He’s already tipsy on alcohol, and he’s got some marijuana that he smokes on the way there. Ava also indulges in some of the marijuana smoking.

Before they drive off, the four friends notice two workers from the restaurant/bar that catered the party: Stevie Ward (played by Sarah Pidgeon) and Hannah Decker (played by Georgia Flood) are busy packing up some supplies. Hannah is a member of Southport Trinity Church, which has a creepy and overly zealous leader named Pastor Judah (played by Austin Nichols), who is introduced fairly late in the movie. Stevie is invited to join the four pals to watch the fireworks.

Why are Ava, Danica, Teddy and Milo interested in hanging out with Stevie? In dialogue that’s basically an exposition dump, it’s quickly explained that Stevie used to be a close friend of Ava, Danica, Teddy and Milo when they were in high school. However, Stevie’s life went downhill after her father was sent to prison for some type of fraud that caused her family’s finances to be ruined. Stevie developed an addiction that landed her in rehab while her former friends went away to college and seemed to forget all about Stevie.

Ava, Danica, Teddy and Milo feel some guilt about abandoning their friendship with Stevie at a low point in her life, which is why they invite her to watch fireworks with them. Stevie declines the offer at first because she says she has to finish working that night. But she is persuaded to join the group.

On a winding cliffside road, Teddy is drunk and stoned when he gets out of the car and starts acting like an idiot in the middle of the road. He narrowly avoids being hit by one car. A pickup truck drives up less than minute later and swerves to avoid hitting him. The truck crashes through a guardrail and is hanging over a steep cliff. The only person in the truck is the driver: a young man who’s barely conscious.

Ava, Danica, Teddy, Milo and Stevie panic about what to do as the car tilts precariously off the cliff. Anyone who goes inside the truck to try to pull out the driver could cause the truck to fall over the cliff. And then, the worst-case scenario happens: The truck falls over the cliff with the driver trapped inside. It’s a different scenario than the original “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” which had a hit-and-run accident.

Teddy calls 911 to report seeing the truck go over the cliff, but he tells the others that he won’t tell authorities what caused the accident, and he insists that they all leave the scene of this manslaughter crime before police and anyone else sees them. Ava and Stevie are the only ones in the group who think they should wait for the police to arrive and tell the truth about everything that happened. Danica and Teddy (who don’t want their wedding to be ruined by this scandal) are the ones who feel strongest about keeping what happened a secret.

Eventually, all five of them make a pact to keep it a secret. However, Teddy later reveals that he told his father Grant, in case he needs Grant to help him get out of trouble. Grant has obvious motives to keep it a secret too. It’s revealed early on in the movie that the person in the car really did die because his body was found, and his death was in the local news. His name was Sam Cooper.

By changing the car accident from a hit-and-run to a victim’s car swerve gone wrong, 2025’s “I Know what You Did Last Summer” makes it more believable that this accident could be kept a secret because there was no damage done to the car that Teddy was driving. However, there are too many implausible things that happen in 2025’s “I Know What You Did Last Summer” that become even harder to accept once it’s revealed who’s behind the murders that happen in the movie. After this information is revealed, it makes law enforcement and some other people look incredibly stupid for not knowing about certain information that would be easily known and investigated in real life.

One year after the car accident, Danica is having another Fourth of July engagement party. This time, she’s engaged to marry another handsome and wealthy guy. His name is Wyatt (played by Joshua Orpin), and he’s addicted to alcohol, but Danica says that she’s willing to overlook Wyatt’s drinking problem because Wyatt treats her well. It’s mentioned that Danica broke up with Teddy because Teddy went on a downward spiral of abusing alcohol after the car accident. (Danica seems to have a thing for alcohol-abusing, rich pretty boys.)

And once again, Ava and Milo are at this engagement party. This time, Danica gets an anonymous greeting card that says, “I know what you did last summer.” At first, Danica accuses Teddy of sending the card because she thinks he’s jealous that she’s moved on to a new fiancé. Teddy (who is still a heavy drinker) vehemently denies it because he wants to keep their big secret too.

Someone who’s in town to do a story on the serial killings that have plagued Southport is a true crime podcaster named Tyler (played by Gabbriette Bechtel), who hosts a podcast called Live, Love, Slaughter. Tyler (who has a brash and crude personality) thinks she can uncover information that no one else has reported. Ava and Tyler met because they were on the same airplane flight. Tyler is first seen in the movie having a sexual hookup with Ava in an airport bathroom.

It’s another example of how disjointed the movie is, because even though it shows that Ava is queer or bisexual, the movie doesn’t reveal hardly anything else about her personal life. In another scene, Ava drops a major hint to Milo that she’s into BDSM sex, which makes straght-laced Milo very uncomfortable. All of this might be the movie’s way of being provocative, but it looks so phony, contrived and irrelevant to the main story.

After Danica gets the mystery greeting card, the killings begin. Just like in the other “Last Summer” movies, the masked killer is dressed in a fisherman’s hat and jacket and uses a fisherman’s hook to murder the victims. This killer is called the Fisherman.

One of the movie’s biggest failings is how easy it is to narrow down who the killer could be. The movie has very few characters who are tall enough and strong enough to do all the strenuous fighting and murders that take place between the Fisherman and the murder victims. And then, when you look at possible motives and who’s still alive in the last 20 minutes of the film, it becomes even easier to figure out who committed the murders.

Two of the characters from 1997’s “I Know What You Did Last Summer” make their return in the 2025 version of the movie: Julie James (played by Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray Bronson (played by Freddie Prinze Jr.), who were a dating couple in high school. Julie and Ray are now a divorced couple who can’t stand each other. Julie works as a criminology professor at a local university. Ray owns Ray’s Bar, where Stevie and Hannah work.

Aside from not having enough possible suspects, “I Know What You Did Last Summer” has a big problem with how the screenplay overlooks or omits many things that should be in a believable slasher movie. The movie has no significant law enforcement presence that’s investigating these murders. That doesn’t mean police detectives had to be the main characters, but the movie needed to show at least one law enforcement official consistently interacting with any witnesses and anyone who was close to the murder victims.

Police officers are briefly seen but are mostly background characters. Danica has a scene where she’s alone in a police interview room, but that scene is mostly a setup for a nostalgia-oriented “surprise.” The “surprise” doesn’t last long and only serves as a reminder that 2025’s “I Know What You Did Last Summer” has a shortage of fresh new ideas for its characters.

When you factor in that the people being murdered in this movie mostly come from affluent and influential families, that’s when “I Know What You Did Last Summer” loses all credibility that law enforcement is almost non-existent in this film. Instead, the movie shows Ava unrealistically trying to solve the crimes on her own. A few of the murders happen and then are never mentioned again. The screenplay is just so sloppy and distracting with these plot holes.

The acting performances are serviceable, with Hewitt making the most out of her screen time. Prinze is a little stiff in his role, but his acting doesn’t ruin the movie. However, all the new characters are as hollow as hollow can be. The movie’s fan-service pandering reaches its peak at the end of the film (including a mid-credits scene), which makes it obvious that the filmmakers opened the door for a sequel.

“I Know What You Did Last Summer” has satirical comedy and some homages to the franchise’s first two films. And the movie has some effective amusing moments when it pokes fun at how a privileged character like Danica can live in a bubble of materialistic vanity. But when you consider at how much information is on the Internet and on social media, it’s hard not to overlook how ridiculous it is that the motive for these murders wasn’t discovered very early on in whatever investigation took place.

“I Know What You Did Last Summer” movies have never been about supernatural or paranormal killers. The killers in these movies are very much human. And that’s why 2025’s “I Know What You Did Last Summer” makes the egregious mistake of making it only about the grisly ways that people get killed and ignoring all of the things that make the victims seem like real people whose murders would be investigated.

Columbia Pictures and Screen Gems will release “I Know What You Did Last Summer” in U.S. cinemas on July 18, 2025.

Review: ‘The Little Mermaid’ (2023), starring Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King, Javier Bardem, Melissa McCarthy, Noma Dumezweni and the voices of Daveed Diggs, Awkwafina and Jacob Tremblay

May 22, 2023

by Carla Hay

Jonah Hauer-King and Halle Bailey in “The Little Mermaid” (Photo by Giles Keyte/Disney Enterprises Inc.)

“The Little Mermaid” (2023)

Directed by Rob Marshall

Culture Representation: Taking place in the 1830s, in and around the waters of an unnamed Caribbean island, the fantasy film “The Little Mermaid” (a live-action remake of the 1989 animated film of the same name) features a racially diverse cast of characters (black, white, Asian and Latin) portraying merpeople, humans and non-human animals.

Culture Clash: An 18-year-old mermaid princess falls in love with a young-adult human prince, and she unwittingly makes a deal with an evil witch to become a human, in exchange for the witch getting to keep the mermaid’s voice and making the mermaid mute.

Culture Audience: Besides appealing to the obvious fans of the original movie, this live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid” will primarily appeal people looking for family-friendly movies with messages about love, bigotry and re-invention, but fans of the original “The Little Mermaid” might not like some of the uneven qualities of this remake.

Melissa McCarthy in “The Little Mermaid” (Photo courtesy of Disney Enterprises Inc.)

The visual effects are uneven, and some of the characters are bland, but this live-action remake of the 1989 animated film “The Little Mermaid” has enough appealing aspects to satisfy most viewers. Halle Bailey, Daveed Diggs and Melissa McCarthy are the standout cast members. The multicultural update to the live-action “The Little Mermaid” mostly works seamlessly, although some of it looks too forced and only there for the sake of looking multicultural.

The movie remake’s three new and original songs—with lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda and music by original “The Little Mermaid” composer Alan Menken (who won also composed the score to 2023’s “The Little Mermaid” remake)—are very good but are not in the upper echelon of classic Disney songs. Menken won an Oscar for composing the score to 1989’s “The Little Mermaid.” The musical score and original songs for 2023’s “The Little Mermaid” work well enough for the movie, but none of it is going to win any Oscars.

Directed by Rob Marshall and written by David Magee, the 2023 remake of “The Little Mermaid” adheres closely to the original story with some noticeable changes that don’t alter the overall spirit of the original story. “The Little Mermaid” remake takes place in the 1830s, in and around the waters of an unnamed Caribbean island populated by many races. It’s in contrast to the original “Little Mermaid” which had a cast of mostly white people.

“The Little Mermaid” is inspired by Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale of the same name that was published in 1837. Although the writer of the original story was a white European, the story’s location of an island kingdom could be set anywhere in a cinematic version of “The Little Mermaid.” With a Caribbean island as the central human location for this remake of “The Little Mermaid,” it makes sense that the movie would have a multicultural/multi-racial cast, since many Caribbean islands are multicultural/multiracial.

Marshall has a background in movie musicals, having also directed 2002’s Oscar-winning “Chicago,” the 2009 version of “Nine,” the 2014 version of “Into the Woods” and the 2018 sequel “Mary Poppins Returns.” This remake of “The Little Mermaid” doesn’t look entirely like a musical but more like a movie with some music video segments incorporated into the film. Viewers will have varied reactions to how the movie puts some modern hip-hop and modern dance moves in a movie that’s supposed to take place in the 1830s.

Marshall also directed 2011’s “The Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” so he has experience directing big-budget visual-effects movies taking place in a sea and in Caribbean settings. Although the visual effects get better in the last third of the live-action “The Little Mermaid,” the movie has some visual effects that look disappointingly fake and sloppy in the first two-thirds of the movie. For example, the movie’s opening scene, which shows the world of merpeople who live in an unnamed sea, has some off-putting visuals that make all of the merpeople look too much like computer-generated imagery.

It’s in this sea that viewers first see the underwater kingdom ruled by King Triton (played by Javier Bardem), a widower who has seven young-adult daughters of different races and who represent the seven seas. The daughters are Tamika (played by Sienna King), Perla (played by Lorena Andrea), Caspia (played by Nathalie Sorrell), Indira (played by Simone Ashley), Mala (played by Karolina Conchet), Karina (played by Kajsa Mohammar) and Ariel (played by Bailey). Unfortunately, the movie makes all of the sisters except Ariel have utterly tepid personalities that are indistinguishable from each other, thereby making all the sisters except Ariel look like “tokens” for whatever human nationality they’re supposed to represent.

At 18 years old, Ariel is the youngest and most open-minded of her sisters, who all have been taught to dislike and distrust the humans who live on land, because humans have been polluting bodies of water, thereby killing a lot of underwater life. King Triton has strictly forbidden his daughters to go above the water. Meanwhile, humans don’t trust merpeople, especially mermaids, because humans blame mermaids for casting spells on sailors (usually by singing) and causing these sailors to die.

Ariel has the belief that everyone should be judged on individual merits and not judged based on an identity group. It’s a belief that King Triton thinks is absurd and naïve. (Bardem does a reasonably good but occasionally stiff performance as King Triton.) Ariel is so fascinated with humans, she keeps a collection of human-made artifacts that she has found underneath the sea. In this early part of the movie, Bailey does a stellar version of “Part of Your World” that will hook even the most cynical viewers into wanting to see more of the movie.

Ariel’s closest companions are an amiable flounder appropriately named Flounder (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) and a gossipy seagull named Scuttle (voiced by Awkwafina), who is easily able to observe the worlds of humans and merpeople. King Triton’s chief aide is a nervous crab named Sebastian (voiced by Diggs), who is eventually tasked with keeping an eye on Ariel when her father suspects that Ariel wants to go above the water and interact with humans. And sure enough, that’s exactly what Ariel ends up doing.

This version of “The Little Mermaid” has a somewhat drab introduction of the humans in the story. Prince Eric (played by Jonah Hauer-King), who is in his early 20s, is the heir to an unnamed island kingdom. He is first seen on a ship with several members of the royal navy, who are all very uninteresting. None of these navy subordinates has a personality that stands out from the pack. The ship accidentally becomes engulfed in flames, so everyone has to abandon the ship. Not everyone makes it out alive.

In the chaos, Eric falls into the sea, where he is rescued by Ariel and brought on shore to a beach. A groggy Eric regains partial consciousness and finds Ariel embracing him and singing to him. Eric’s vision is blurry but he is utterly enchanted by Ariel’s beauty, compassion and her voice. It’s “love at first sight” for Ariel and Eric. However, Ariel is too frightened to be seen with Eric, so she quickly returns to the ocean. Eric is eventually found by some of his ship mates.

Eric didn’t see that Ariel was a mermaid, so he assumes that she is a human. He goes back to his kingdom and tells his skeptical, widowed mother Queen Selina (played by Noma Dumezweni) that the woman of his dreams saved his life, and he’s determined to find her, because he wants to date her and probably marry her. It’s explained in the movie that Queen Selina and Prince Eric (her only child) are of different races because Selina and her husband adopted Eric when he was an abandoned baby.

Meanwhile, Ariel has become lovesick over Eric. One of the merpeople in this underwater kingdom who has noticed Ariel’s mopey mood is a sea witch named Ursula (played by McCarthy), who hatches a plan to use Ariel for a self-serving scheme to gain control of the kingdom. Ursula, who has a grudge against King Triton, is the half-human, half-octopus sister of King Triton, who banished Ursula years ago for her misdeeds.

Years before Ariel was born, Ursula thought that she would be the one to inherit the sea kingdom, but Triton was named the ruler instead. As part of this leadership position, Triton has a magical triton that has the power to be a weapon as well as way to transform creatures. Whoever owns the triton will essentially be the leader of this sea kingdom.

Ursula introduces herself to Ariel, who is wary because she heard from her father to stay away from Ursula. However, Ursula knows that Ariel and Triton have been arguing because he found out that Ariel disobeyed his orders to stay underwater. Triton also discovers that Ariel has fallen in love with the human prince whom she rescued from death. A smooth-talking Ursula uses this father/daughter conflict to her advantage.

Ursula makes a deal with Ariel: Ursula can turn Ariel into a human for three days, but Ursula will keep Ariel’s voice during this three-day period. If Ariel is able to get a “true love” kiss from Eric, Ariel can remain a human and be with Eric. But if Ariel fails to get this kiss from Eric before the three days are over, then Ariel will be turned back into a mermaid forever and Ursula will get to keep Ariel’s voice.

It’s a big risk that Ariel is willing to take. She’s transformed into a human and ends up naked (covered in seaweed and rope) when she is caught in a fisherman’s net. Ariel is given clothes by the fisherman and eventually finds her way to the kingdom’s palace, where she turned into a handmaiden, who is mute but who catches the attention of Eric. Ariel does not tell Eric that she was the one who rescued him.

Even if people didn’t already know the entire story of “The Little Mermaid,” it’s easy to predict what will happen in this Disney princess story. What makes this movie watchable are the luminous performance of Bailey, the lively voice acting of Diggs (who does a passable Caribbean accent) and the scene-stealing turn by McCarthy. The overall chemistry of the cast members works best when the characters played by Bailey, Diggs and McCarthy are on screen.

Bailey is entirely believable as Ariel, with a performance that is a skillful blend of sheltered innocence and independent curiosity. (A little joke in the movie is that Ariel believes Scuttle’s incorrect statement that a fork is a mini-triton that humans use to comb their hair. Ariel eventually finds out the truth.) Bailey shows undeniable star quality in “The Little Mermaid” (her first starring role in a movie), so it will be interesting to see what other leading-lady roles she will do after this breakthrough performance.

As the frequently exasperated and worried Sebastian, Diggs brings some swagger and bounce to a character whose loyalties are often torn between King Triton and Ariel. Sebastian is also the voice of reason when Ariel becomes too impetuous and stubborn, or when Scuttle becomes too scatter-brained and hyper. The comedy for Scuttle seems to try too hard, while the comedy for Sebastian seems more organic and natural.

Some viewers might not like the touches of comedy that McCarthy (whose speaking voice as Ursula has a lower octave than McCarthy’s real voice) brings to the Ursula character, but these moments of levity are needed and welcome in a movie that comes dangerously close to taking itself too seriously. McCarthy also handles the singing quite well, particularly in Ursula’s signature song “Poor Unfortunate Souls.” McCarthy’s version of Ursula might not be as menacing as many people expect Ursula to be, but McCarthy does a convincing job of portraying a bitter witch who feels entitled to take what she thinks is owed to her.

Viewers will also have mixed reactions to Awkwafina as Scuttle, since people either like or dislike Awkwafina’s speaking voice. One of the highlights in “The Little Mermaid” is the new song “The Scuttlebutt,” a rap-pop hybrid performed by Awkwafina and Diggs, who each has a background in performing rap music. The only drawback to “The Scuttlebutt” song is that is it shows Awkwafina has limited singing skills and sounds better as a rapper.

The other new and original songs in this version of “The Little Mermaid” are “Wild Unchartered Waters” (performed by Hauer-King) and “For the First Time,” performed by Bailey. There’s also a new reprise of “Part of Your World,” performed by Bailey. “Wild Uncharted Waters” and “For the First Time” sound more like traditional Disney musical songs. Some viewers will like that conventional sound, while other viewers will think the songs play it too safe and should have been more inventive.

Sebastian’s showcase songs “Kiss the Girl” and the Oscar-winning “Under the Sea” (with music by Menken and lyrics by Howard Ashman) join the Menken/Ashman songs “Part of Your World” and “Poor Unfortunate Souls” from the original “Little Mermaid” movie that are in this “Little Mermaid” remake. The live-action movie remake of “The Little Mermaid” has a total running tme of 135 minutes, which is a little too long for a movie that just added only three orginal songs. If the movie needed to be this long, it would have been better to replace some of the duller dialogue scenes with dazzling musical numbers that have new and original songs.

Where the live-action version “The Little Mermaid” falters the most is in not really living up to the potential to have more exciting supporting characters. Hauer-King is perfectly pleasant as Prince Eric, but his performance doesn’t have star-making charisma. Hauer-King’s chemistry with Bailey evokes more of a puppy-love crush rather than the type of passionate true love that can lead to a quick marriage. Tremblay’s capable but uninspiring performance as Flounder is overshadowed by the squawking of Scuttle and the wisecracking of Sebastian.

This live-action version of “The Little Mermaid” has a real imbalance in making the sea inhabitants much more interesting overall than the human inhabitants. Prince Eric in particular should be the type of heartthrob who makes millions of admirers swoon, but that type of magnetic romantic appeal just isn’t there in Hauer-King’s performance. Queen Selina and royal court member Sir Grimbsy (played by Art Malik), who is Prince Eric’s chief advisor and confidant, go through the usual motions, but there’s nothing exceptional about the performances of these two characters. There’s also a royal maid named Lashana (played by Martina Laird), who helps Ariel adjust to work life in the palace, but Lashana is ultimately a very generic character.

That doesn’t mean all of the sea life is compelling in this version of “The Little Mermaid.” The eel characters of Flotsam and Jetsam (who are minions of Ursula) are silent, mostly forgettable, and barely in the movie. It’s a missed opportunity to give Flotsam and Jetsam memorable personalities in a live-action remake. And as previously mentioned, the movie makes Ariel’s sisters look like soulless CGI images, instead of mermaids with specific and identifiable personalities.

In other words, this live-action version of “The Little Mermaid” is a mixed bag of flaws and assets, with more assets than flaws. Seeing this movie on the biggest screen possible just makes these assets and flaws more noticeable. The movie’s concept that a female has to change her physical appearance in order to attract and marry a man seems a little outdated in a post-feminism world, even though most of today’s beauty standards for females are still based in these patriarchal ideals. The live-action “The Little Mermaid” doesn’t quite deliver an epic and authentic-looking romance, but the movie does have some delightful performances while staying true to positive messages of overcoming bigotry and self-doubt.

Walt Disney Pictures will release “The Little Mermaid” in U.S. cinemas on May 26, 2023.