The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning [2008 film]

I like that the sisters are given a lot of space in this film, and that they got back the original voice actors to a surprising extent. I guess that's where the praise ends.
The plot is the typical terrible regurgitation of the original one would expect from a bad sequel, but worse, here, by being set before the first film. Instead of merely giving Triton circular character development here, then, it is actually retroactively making the wonderful original film worse by making THAT film the one where he re-learns a lesson already hammered home. This also applies to the film as a whole: Rather than being a rehash of the original film's plotline, it retroactively makes the original film a rehash of this film's storyline.
Additionally, there show more are glaring plot holes (notably the villain immediately finding the missing princesses without any help or explanation as to how she knew where to look, when the film had taken a lot of care to show how hard to find their location was) and wildly inconsistent characterisation in the case of Flounder (who, oddly, seemed much more himself in the DVD's supplied deleted scenes). All in all, despite some fine emotional moments, good voice acting, decent moments of comedy and several lovely little character bits, and the not-terrible notion of giving Triton a traumatic personal motivation for his distrust of the surface and its humans, this is just not a very good film. As far as unnecessary Mermaid prequels go, the (obviously uneven) television series is far, far superior to this in every way except the animation budget. show less

It's ok as far as Disney movie sequels go, we learn about what happened to Ariel's mother. It does explain why Triton is set against his kids having contact with humans, but as far as the overall movie goes, it's meh. Something to check out if you like Disney's the Little Mermaid, but otherwise don't bother.