★★★★

Disney hasn’t half come a long way since Angela Lansbury and David Tomlinson shimmied a sub-marina two step back in 1971’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Gone are the two-dimensional toons and hand-drawn backdrops. This is the post-Avatar world of CGI wizardry. Rob Marshall’s new take on Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid, by way of Disney’s beloved 1989 animation, follows hot on the heels of James Cameron’s Way of the Water in this respect and achieves a feat that must once have seemed impossible. Which is to say: to film a technically brilliant underwater musical. Though only marginally less perfunctory than its fellow Disney remakes of recent years – only David Lowery’s Pete’s Dragon has thus far bested the original – Marshall’s Little Mermaid is terrific fun and a well timed launch pad for Summer at the cinema.