You made an addition to the Movie Club! That's always appreciated. I wouldn't have expected The Little Mermaid from you, haha.
I am not sure what to think of this film yet. I know a lot of controversy (largely make-believe controversy) arose from casting a black woman as Ariel, but I think she looks like a charming lead. The only issues I can say from my current standpoint are the aesthetics. Like The Lion King live-action film, by making cartoon characters hyper-realistic, it takes away some of the charm and expressiveness of each of them. I haven't seen Disney's Pinocchio movie yet (I have heard negative things, however), but I did appreciate how Pinocchio looked like Pinocchio in it. They're colorful characters! Likewise, the color-scheme for Ariel and the film itself feels too stilted to me. I would have loved to have seen a radiating red hair, swimming to pitch-black seas (at times) with a bright-yellow Flounder, and something like that just can't happen with this approach.
