the little mermaid BROADWAY REVIEWS

• NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW OF the little mermaid

  

  Directed by Francesca Zambello, this Little Mermaid burdens its performers with ungainly guess-what-I-am costumes (by Tatiana Noginova) and a distracting set (by George Tsypin) . . .

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• NEWSDAY REVIEW OF the little mermaid

  

  Alas, it is even harder to fall in love with the show. In fact, the most amazing part of Disney's latest musical is its amazing shortage of originality - not to mention magic or cross-generational wit. The adaptation of the 1989 smash animation, which opened last night at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, may well prove as immune to grown-up opinion as any since Disney introduced itself to Broadway 14 years ago with the overblown children's-theater spectacle, Beauty and the Beast. But theatergoers spoiled by Julie Taymor's boundary-breaking brilliance in The Lion King are not served by this doggedly conventional, well-performed, middling bore of a show.

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• USA TODAY REVIEW OF the little mermaid

  

  But the new Mermaid is ultimately less than the sum of its impressive parts, offering neither the richly imaginative spectacle of The Lion King nor the old-fashioned vitality and charm of Mary Poppins.

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• VARIETY REVIEW OF the little mermaid

  

  As for Mermaid's Broadway prospects, the strength of the property might help it stay afloat awhile, especially with tourist traffic. But if Disney Theatrical chief Thomas Schumacher's aim in enlisting Zambello and team was to develop another eye-popping theatrical event to transcend the kid-fare label, he needs to keep fishing.

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• NEW YORK DAILY NEWS REVIEW OF the little mermaid

  

  Too bad a lot of what's been added is soggy filler. The show is more theme-park spectacle than Broadway musical. For all its fancy tricks, the show's give-you-chills moment comes with the simplest of effects - the feisty Ariel sheds her tail and transforms from mermaid to girl. I silently marveled, "Wow, she's got legs!" Whether that can be said of Disney's new live-action cartoon remains to be seen.

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• REVIEW OF the little mermaid

  

  The Disney musicals just keep getting worse. We go through the same routine again and again: pick out a trendy director, add a bunch of bland songs to make a 90-minute film into a two-and-a-half hour mishap, recruit some legitimate Broadway singers, and poof! Just like Sweeney Todd slicing his victims to bits, another beloved Disney animated film bites the dust and is turned into a ridiculous corporate-minded spe

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• THEATERMANIA REVIEW OF the little mermaid

  

  The only things keeping this adaptation of the original 1988 animated film from utter mediocrity are three enthralling new numbers by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater: a cute ditty called "She's in Love," a traditional Disney nonsense song dubbed "Positoovity," and "If Only," a ballad for four main characters that could someday come to be known as the Verdi-like quartet from The Little Mermaid.

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