The Disney remake of The Little Mermaid was predicted to go big at the box office due to a combination of the exciting casting of Halle Bailey as Ariel and seeing this beloved Disney classic come to life in live-action form. While box office expectations were met, a number of negative reviews surfaced on certain movie rating websites that questioned the audience’s overall reception of the movie. On the other hand, any strange activity of an increase in negative reviews did not stop The Little Mermaid from achieving a Rotten Tomatoes milestone.
Some fishy activity occurred after the release of The Little Mermaid when it got review bombed in a strange fashion. Over 13,000 voters on IMDB gave this Disney remake a one-star rating and AlloCiné received a similarly strange surge of negativity towards the Disney film as well. It could be that users have been trying to bring this movie down because of the racist backlash Halle Bailey received for being a Black actress taking on the traditionally caucasian role. Luckily, these sites have detected this odd voting activity and applied an alternative weighting calculation to ensure the site’s reliability. Conversely, Rotten Tomatoes ranked all 21 of their live-action Disney remakes and The Little Mermaid holds a spot in the Top Ten regarding critical ratings at number nine.
