I never liked this movie growing up. Before watching the Rescuers again for the first time since I was a kid, this was one of my two least favorite Disney movies of all time. It's not because of anything I find offensive about the plot, it's just that it is a terrible love story even by Disney standards, and the things about the plot that are interesting get immediately pushed aside the moment a love interest is introduced. That said, what is The Little Mermaid about?
Ariel, the daughter of King Trident, is a mermaid who wants more than what the underwater world has to offer. Disobeying her father, she comes in contact with a human and falls in love having spoken no words to Prince Eric. Selling her voice and potentially soul to an evil Sea Witch, she becomes human and tries to win over Eric to fulfill her contract and remain human and keep her soul. The plot itself never gets deeper than that, and like most Disney animated films it's filled with a lot of songs to express how the characters are feeling.
I will say, I do not remember Under the Sea being kind of a disturbing song when you listen to the lyrics. The main argument for why the sea is a better place to live is you won't be chopped up and eaten. The lucky fish are the ones confined to a bowl to live out their lives. Then there is the scene later in the movie where Sebastion, the Crab who is trying to help Ariel be happy, ends up in a kitchen with a cook. The scene is played up for laughs as he's trying to escape a crazy looking cook, but think about what this looks like to Sebastion. He is watching a man gleefully slaughter and cook Sebastion's fellow undersea friends. This is kind of a disturbing scene, and I don't know if the people who made this movie realize how messed up this whole thing was, and I kind of love it. Then there is the odd detail of when one of Ursula's Eels (Minor Spoiler) get zapped, you specifically see its disconnected eye float down into her hands.
Unintentional comedy aside, I think the worse thing about this movie is its inability to make anything actually seem wonderful. This underwater kingdom feels a bit bland, the grand world above the waves is a bit generic and barely explored. The characters are all very bland and uninteresting. There are themes of wanting a world of wonder and great things and none of that ever gets delivered on. The animation is great as always, Disney has not yet faltered on that. No matter how long the movies have been around, all the Disney films aged wonderfully in terms of their animation, and this is no exception.
Now, everything bad I just said about the movie is true, and you would think it would make this one of the worst Disney films. However, every complaint has one big exception in Ursula, one of the greatest villains in all of Disney, or for that matter any kind of animated film. Everything about this woman is glorious. Poor Unfortunate Souls is an outstanding track, the way it starts off feeling with Ursula just smugly pitying Ariel and builds to just full and upfront conniving evil. Even the way you see Ursala's fat folds move around is discomforting when compared to everyone else moving around without anything like that. The dark colors of her lair, just how conniving she ends up being, using Ariel's own voice against her, everything about her is fantastic.
I still stand by this just isn't a very good movie. Yes, Ursula is this gloriously evil bright spot, but that isn't enough to save what is otherwise a rather uninteresting film. It's enough to keep me from calling it a bad film, because Ursula is that great, but if you watch this one don't expect much interesting past her.
Ursula being a modern day loan shark lending her help/business to the desperate. Then gets despised and killed for just doing business. While malice is part of her character, she doesn't antagonize the sea overtly, she just waits for anyone to come to her business and doesn't seem to have a problem living up to her reputation. She's more real to me as a character than others.
Off topic: About that discord server for anime realm?
Awwww, I quite liked this movie. "Under the Sea" is still in my head to this day even though I haven't seen this movie in 20 years or so. But I probably dislike a film or two that other people like a lot :)