5) 'Little Mermaid 3; Ariel's Beginning'

This movie should be renamed 'Wasted Potential' the movie.

With a title that implies that its a film exploring the backstory of one of Disney's most famous characters you expect the writers to put in extra effort. I was actually looking forward to see this, I'm not joking. I was expecting this film to redeem Ariel in my eyes and make me like her. Perhaps this film was going to explore why Ariel was so obsessed with humans and adding more motivations to her actions from the first movie. Maybe we will find out more about her father too, and her relationship with her family and how she met Flounder. Oh and didn't Ursula live at the palace back then? Maybe we see why she got banished! Oh my god this movie is going to be great.

...

Not only this movie was worse than I imagined but it has the most IDIOTIC plot out of all the sequels. I'm dead serious, the lack of logic, common sense and braincells in this movie is amazing. Due to that fact alone, this film is WORSE than the Little Mermaid 2. Sure the plot from that movie was lazy and also lacked common sense, well multiply that by ten and you have Little Mermaid 3.

Okay so, what is the plot of this movie? Well don't be fooled by the plot summary of IMDB which makes this movie sound interesting and worth a watch;

The plot explores the story of Athena, Ariel's mother, through the narration of Ariel.

Who wrote this? I swear I want to find the person who wrote this because of THAT person I thought this movie was going to be worth my time. The story of Athena is five minutes long and only ocurrs in the begining of the movie. Even more misleading, the narration is done by SEBASTIAN not Ariel.  The rest of the movie is about...well....ugh...be patient my lovelies I must start from the beginning.

Okay so the movie starts by telling us about Queen Athena, Ariel's mother. First of all, Athena looks almost EXACTLY like Ariel look;



Now you might not think this is too bad, I mean its common that parents look like their children but the fact that Ariel is Triton's 'favorite' daughter comes off as something extremely creepy now. Ariel has a lot of siblings and not one of them look like Athena. Its really distracting and weird.

Okay so afterwards we learn that during Athenas time everyone was happy and cheerful which obviously means that something tragic is going to happen to her. While King Triton and his family are at the shore playing around, he gives Athena a music box. All of a sudden, a pirate ship approaches at a snail's pace and while everyone hides under the water Athena forgets her music box on the rocks. Instead of being a sane person and wait for the ship to pass by to get the music box, Athena goes for the music box while the Pirate ship is right in front of her. As expected, the pirate ship crashes against her and kills her.

Thats right folks, SHE RISKED HER LIFE FOR A MUSIC BOX SHE GOT A MINUTE AGO.

I feel no pity for Athena, none whatsoever. It was natural selection at its finest, since no normal and sane person would risk their life for a stupid music box. I actually replayed the scene three times to see if she had another motivation but nope, it was just the music box. Wouldn't it be better if she died saving someone? Why does it have to be for a tacky music box? It makes no sense.

So because Athena was killed in the name of magical musical boxes, from that day on Triton HATES MUSIC RAWR. Thus, music is forbidden in Atlantica.

You heard right, this is the plot of the movie. Triton forbids music in Atlantica because his wife was killed by a music box so Ariel wants to...return music to Atlantica or something. The moment the plot reared its ugly head, I lost all hope for this movie. I watched this with the biggest and grumpiest frown on my face because I knew that with a plot like that, there was no hope for this movie.

Also, Ariel is a total brat in this. I know she has the right to...ugh...listen to music but she has that same holier than thou attitude that gets on my nerves. She doesn't understand that her father is grieving and these kind of wounds take time to heal. Instead she's like "OMG DADDY YOU ARE SO OLD AND BORING IM GONNA RUN AWAY" . Again, I know Triton is wrong for forbidding....UGh...music in his kingdom but still, I couldn't root for either side since all they did was lash at each other and they didn't try to understand the situation. Wait...why is Ariel Triton's favorite again? Oh...yeah...she looks like her- ahem moving on.

Now what makes Ariel even more unlikable is her sisters. They are a thousand times more charming and likable than her, therefore they upstage her. This works against the movie since well...its called 'Ariel's Beginning'. Its supposed to be about how Ariel came to be.

Flounder and Sebastian also act completely out of character. Flounder is no longer a cowardly guppy and is actually the complete opposite and Sebastian constantly disobeys Triton's orders. Oh and the antagonist here is so so so bland get this, her main objective is getting Sebastian's job. Thats it. At least Morgana wanted world domination or something, this antagonist just wants a better paycheck. Lame.

Okay so...is there something good in this movie? Well...the animation isn't bad (the character designs are very wonky though) and like I mentioned before Ariel's sisters are charming and fun. Also, the antagonist's sidekick is adorable (his name is Benjamin I think) which is pretty sad how the sidekick upstages its villain.

Thats all I have to say concerning this movie, its a huge waste of time and it satisfies no one. Whether you love or hate Ariel this movie is not for you, I think the perfect audience for this are four year olds but even I wouldn't be so cruel and make them watch this!