Critic Reviews

Often-jittery, ultimately charming concert special. ... The show thrived, in its live moments, when it embraced being proudly ersatz. ... The handmade, quirk-heavy tone of the production carried the day so heavily that at least one big star seemed out of place: Heavily anticipated and promoted within the broadcast, Queen Latifah, as Ursula, seemed to fall behind the beat and to generally lack the risky abandon of her part.

The show opens with two big production numbers that weave in and around the movie fairly seamlessly. ... The rest of the numbers are more of a mixed bag. ... Queen Latifah absolutely nails her performance of Ursula’s “Poor Unfortunate Souls.” She’s the clear MVP of the night, and it certainly doesn’t hurt that her styling and costuming are fantastic to boot. ... It’s a fun, breezy, somewhat forgettable trip back under the sea.

All of these performers handled the material well. The stunt casting of celebrities has sometimes been a drag on live TV musicals, but this cast could sing, and the animated characters handled most of the dialogue. ... The special’s staging was more hit-and-miss.

The Little Mermaid Live! was an equally audacious and disastrous, admirable TV experiment. Everyone involved should be embarrassed and proud!

Switching between the classic film and a live production may have sounded good in theory, especially when considering the movie breaks gave the production more time to swap sets, but its execution was clunky. ... What was live was good, what wasn’t became diminished by expectations and comparisons — that’s not an ideal blend, and I’ll take an ambitious failure over half-a-musical any day.

Audiences were deprived of any dramatic performances from the cast, treated instead to what ostensibly amounted to a concert that relied heavily on background video and brief celebrity cameos. It was a deflating experience.

It was a solid, full-throated effort by the actors and chorus members, but a spectacular failure of a live TV event that couldn't get past its own awkwardness.

It felt like watching The Little Mermaid with regular interruptions for commercials and karaoke. ... The Howard Ashman-Alan Menken tunes are still very catchy, but all the new interpretations were unmemorable.