The Little Mermaid Review: 5 Ups & 5 Downs

1. Daveed Diggs Is A Solid Sebastian

Though many fans have expressed their understandable disapproval of Sebastian's more down-to-Earth redesign, he's at least still a relatively expressive character, in large part due to a fun vocal performance from the great Daveed Diggs.

Diggs has a tall order living up to the brilliance of Samuel E. Wright from the original, but he delivers a performance that makes Sebastian feel very much his own.

Sebastian's deadpan one-liners, especially when exasperated with King Triton (a largely wasted Javier Bardem), rouse some solid laughs, and of the three focal animal characters, he's by far the one who feels most worthy of his animated predecessor.

Again, you'll need to deal with a character design that's not great, but Diggs does enough with the part to offset Sebastian's divisive look.