It’s embarrassing to even call “The Little Mermaid” (2024) a film. It’s as bad, lazy and sloppy as it can get, reducing characters to stock, vapid types. There’s no attempt to make the delivery arch and camp, even though there’s so much scope here. Leigh Scott has written and directed a film that’s a travesty across the board, the juvenile writing exacerbated by the silliest performances. There’s no redeeming value to be found, only an endless barrage of the most ridiculous scenes that strain your endurance, push the very tether of what you can accept to watch.
Rarely has the trope of the vicious, seductive mermaid poised to kill been so deathly boring. The sinister edge appears forced and crashing in its doling out of stupidities. What could have been fun only comes off as amateurish and unbearably harebrained. It’s as if the makers reverse-engineer a script from a cult angle and entirely forgot to whip out any semblance of characterization or coherent, compelling plot.
The Little Mermaid (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
The utter glaring absence of thought shows in every frame. Each tinge of performance shaded on utter farce yet unable to fully revel in the insipid. Moreover, there’s a dissonance at play, an inability to commit to the campy. For the film’s actors to partake in gleeful ludicrousness, they have to go all the way. It’s why the film struggles to achieve anything remotely satisfying. You need conviction in the tone to fully sell a narrative. The characters are depthless, lacking a thrust of motivation.
There’s great fuss with which the film mounts a narrative of excavation and cults, spinning in a mysterious female figure as the locus of trouble and the one who engineers the plot into action. The film kicks off with an uncanny prologue, wherein a mermaid upends a boat, striking out a sailor and luring the only other guy on board. It then lurches to the dealings of a professor, Eric (Mike Markoff), who has been engaged in historical excavations of a particular site. Somehow he’s held the imposing landowners at bay, tossing a sack of money with his generous backer. But he doesn’t have much time in his hands.
One of the museum guys brings him a rare old Spanish curio, which astonishes and piques Eric. He’s told about a mysterious woman who’s appeared. Eric is immediately interested and wants to know more about her. A meeting is scheduled. Aurora Bey (Lydia Helen) turns out to be the mermaid in the prologue. Of course, Eric is completely unaware. Aurora says her father was a collector, and that’s how she came across the curio. Aurora wields a seductive enigma and Eric can’t resist her charms. He’s utterly entranced and falls immediately, slipping into her toxic hold which he doesn’t see as deleterious to him.
Meanwhile, he and his assistant swear they saw a mermaid while doing an underwater search. When the landowner terminates the team’s permit at the site, Eric is anguished. They have unearthed an ancient temple of the Dagon god and Eric is determined to keep going. Aurora comes to the rescue, buying off the land and nudging him to continue the efforts. Ferdy, Eric’s colleague, warns him to be cautious and keep distance from Aurora. Does he know her at all? But Aurora has her hooks into Eric, who’s utterly love-struck, hopelessly bewitched.
Eric fails to see why he should be wary. He thinks Ferdy’s fears are totally unfounded, stemming from his terrible past run-in with a cult in New England. He can’t see any smidgen of logic or rationality in Ferdy’s insistence. When Ferdy spots a picture from 1921 that has Aurora in it, his doubts are cemented. He rails at Eric to seal up the temple, elaborating she’s part of a cult whose resurgence must be halted no matter what. Eric is so blindsided by his lovesickness, the charm Aurora has cast over him, he sees Ferdy’s claims as antagonistic to his desires. Something to entirely overlook, dismiss as fallacious, based on prejudice. Aurora also turns him against Ferdy, underlining the latter being an obstacle between them.
The Little Mermaid (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
Does the mermaid revive Dagon’s rule?
This cult angle barrels towards the most generic, sloppy and laughable climax. The entire thing is frantic, reckless, and it has to be witnessed to be believed. How come neither the makers nor the cast saw through the futility of this film, where the conceits, threads are just randomly, most perfunctorily tossed around? It’s very implausible and far-fetched and contrived with none of the strands making any sense or having any emotional heft.
When Ferdy takes his junior to the painting and convincing him of his theories, the two team up and decide to take Aurora hostage. But they are short-changed by Aurora and her henchman, who trap them in a net. Aurora, in an impassioned fit, insists on Eric to join her. Ferdy tells Eric not to pay any heed to Aurora but Eric is utterly besotted. He has fallen completely sway.
Aurora promises together they can bring back the temple’s reign and return the old world to power. It’s all hokey and manipulative but it does the trick. Eric is completely spellbound, unable to see beyond. He goes along with her. But right at the nick of the moment, she attacks him but isn’t able to consume his life because Ferdy’s junior stabs him, killing them then and there. The spell of transmuting life is broken. Aurora disappears, but the mermaid trouble hasn’t really ended. There’s still scores and scores of mermaids lurking, waiting to capitalise on the eager advances, greed and curiosity of other explorers elsewhere.
Mermaids still exist and haven’t gone off the face of the earth. That’s the message Aurora imparts in the coda to Ferdy. Long after they are gone, someone will uncover the ancient temple out of curiosity and the old gods will march back to earth, bringing back their reign. The conclusion carries inevitability.
