Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Eric Stevenson This is one of the highest ranked direct to video Disney sequels I've ever come across and I'm completely confused as to why! This movie had one of the most shallow villains I have seen in a long time. It's very anti-climatic and it seems silly that King Trident would outlaw music. I will admit I liked some parts. The villain's manatee henchman was pretty entertaining. I felt bad he got put in jail with her at the end. This was a prequel but there was an animated Little Mermaid cartoon that did a better job as that.The best part is easily the beginning of the film where we finally get to see Ariel's mother! Now that was a treat and probably the part everyone likes the most. They don't get that graphic by showing her dying or anything but it's very implied. The animation is actually pretty good for a direct to video sequel. Of course I recognized Jim Cummings' voice. I feel so glad I met that guy. There may have been no celebrity voices, but this was still dull. **

lisafordeay As much as I love The Little Mermaid but I can't understand why the sequences are wrong. Here we go back to when Ariel was a baby(hence the title of Ariel's Beginning)and we get to learn WHY Trition didn't want Ariel to see the human world. You see Ariel's mother died by humans and since that day Triton cannot stand humans.Overall the animation was great but this movie is all over the place as like I said before its out of sequence.There's NO Eric and there's not much to say about it its just not as good as the 1st movie. Bottom line i'll give this movie a miss if I were you. 2/10

djepic1 Ever since Disney's "sequels" department has been under new management, there has been a HUGE upgrade in quality. There have only been two animated releases so far, Cinderella III and The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning. I am not sure if any more sequels are in production.Consistent between both films is the very high quality animation. TLM:AB keeps CGI to a minimum and much effort has been made to keep the characters close to the original character models (and in many cases, character models have heavily improved over the original). This is probably as good as it will get without the original team of animators.What saves this film is the fantastic hand-drawn animation in the age of ugly CGI and lazy flash-drawn cartoons. I would go as far as to say that the animation here is on-par or higher than the original 1989 release (the original was plagued with off-model animation). Unfortunately, the story is only so-so. The plot is very weak but effort has been made to develop all of the sisters' personalities, which I really appreciate (they are believable sister to sister relationships). I think Disney recognised that without Alan Menken, the music for TLM would not have charm or beauty. Disney did the right thing for this film by keeping songs short and to a minimum.This film highly deserves a chance to be seen by many, unlike the rushed and horrible Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea.

FastFan I just picked this movie up today, of course wanting to hear Jodi Benson's gorgeous voice yet again. I had to wait a while before I was able to watch it, but it was worth the wait. It became an awesome movie that tells the "tail" of young Ariel. Personally, I love anything with mermaids and music in it. This movie did justice like the other one, "Return to Sea". Ariel's got six headstrong sisters, how they slept in the same room, it almost appeared as a sea-dormitory, and her father, Triton look so cute when he was younger. Even her mother, Athena, looked much like an older Ariel. Flounder himself was awesome, it was neat how both Ariel and Flounder met. This movie hadn't disappoint me at all, loved just about over %100 of fun, laughter, and music in this fine piece of brilliance. I always wondered what happened to Ariel's mother. But seeing a younger adult version of Triton was even just as unique. I also admired how Sebastian was into music heavily himself. I could watch this movie over and over again! Probably going to watch it in a few minutes, because that's how great it was! Awesome work, Disney! Ten stars is what I gave this comment for, it was brilliantly made, and it's a movie that I also recommend to anyone who's in love with the first two "Little Mermaid" & "Little Mermaid: Return to Sea" movies. As said before, you won't be disappointed...