Disney gives us the breezy story of a quixotic young princess who throws away her regal underwater status to... become a princess on land, instead. At the time, this material represented a fresh return to form for the studio, after thirty years of floundering with overwrought talking-animal adventures and off-brand fantasy epics. In contrast to those more ambitious undertakings, _The Little Mermaid_ is intentionally light and airy - a simple fable that doesn't stretch beyond its own limitations - and there's a certain sense of comfortable familiarity to that. After all, aren't the best fairy tales finished in twenty pages or less?

Clarity of vision and creative restraint might seem like easy concepts, but continually hitting those targets over the length of a feature film isn't nearly as easy as it might seem. This particular effort is aided by a rousing villainess, a handful of spirited musical numbers and a bright, colorful visual identity. The animation can be weirdly inconsistent at times, but the most important moments all hit their marks and the major character designs have proven their staying power.

An inspired, back-to-basics effort from a then-desperate studio that ushered in a widely-regarded period of creative renaissance, both behind the scenes and upon the silver screens. Maybe not one of Disney's very best, but it does well enough for an eighty-minute kids' film and its broader importance can't be overstated.