The Little Mermaid (DVD, 2006)

Disney's 1989 animated film THE LITTLE MERMAID is a very formidable movie, surpassing the combined visual and musical artistic talents of all concerned. Character development is one of the strong points of THE LITTLE MERMAID achieved through concise dialogue, music and simplistic yet effective images. However, most effective to the success of this film are the songs that advance the story line and define the characters. That was the brilliance of lyricist Howard Ashman's contribution to THE LITTLE MERMAID. He and composer Alan Menken developed songs that in several minutes clearly define Ariel's reckless but innocent curiosity about the humans above and her yearning to discover that world. Every song in THE LITTLE MERMAID bolsters the depth of the characters, advances the plot or enhances the significance of a scene in addition to being very melodic and well written. So in THE LITTLE MERMAID we are given a substantial amount of information and entertainment in a minimum amount of time. There is not a single frame of wasted footage in this film. The combined effort is one of a splendid and effortless looking perfect creation of a classical animated Disney tale.