The Little Mermaid II - Return to the Sea

Disney wanted to capitalize on "The Little Mermaid" franchise by creating sequels. Just recently, a third movie (a prequel) was released and, to coincide with that, a box set of the trilogy was released. This led to a new one-disk special DVD of the second "Little Mermaid" film, Return to the Sea. Though the story line lacks a little bit, it could have been a lot worse.

There are a lot of anomalies to this movie. I can understand Ariel and Eric having a child, but when did Ursula mysteriously get a sister? There was no mention, and they had to create someone (who is also voiced by the same person who did Ursula) to make a villain. Although Marina Del Ray, from the third movie, is a stretch, one could at least understand that Triton's daughters needed a matron/governess-type. The movie, in general, is really a rehash of the first movie, with a few characters tossed in to make it seem fresh.

I am a fan of the song, "For a Moment," since it actually has that Broadway style. It shows growth of Melody and the concerns of Ariel. A lot of the animations seem a little rehashed from the "Part of Your World" sequence, but mermaids really can't move as expressively as a human with legs. Jodi Benson is still wonderful, giving life to Ariel, and Tara Strong sings with a wide-eyed abandon as Melody. The rest of the songs aren't as memorable, but the quality of the audio is good.

There are some more bonuses that were added to the original DVD. To add to the childish trivia game that was on the original DVD, they added the "Underwater Mer-venture Challenge Game," where viewers do puzzles. The controls are horrible when you have to navigate Melody and barely register. They have also added a deleted song that would have fleshed out Morgana's character a little, but it's less than two minutes long. I do appreciate that Disney slips in classic videos and new shorts (the two disk DVD of The Little Mermaid included "The Little Matchgirl") on their DVDs. This movie is accentuated by a nine minute video, called "Merbabies," that was originally part of Disney's Silly Symphony line. It's beautiful to see the work done from animation decades ago.

Clearly, Disney wanted to capitalize on the fact that their "Little Mermaid" franchise hit the trilogy point, and make a boxed set. They had to do something with the second movie, so they released this special one-disk. Disney will quickly shove this movie into their vaults and probably leave it in the back to gather dust, since both the original and the third movie are much better than this one.