TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews

I wasn't particularly surprised when I watched this and found it to be well as bad as it is. But that doesn't mean that it isn't worth noting.

Similar to some of the other Disney live action remakes of their animated classics this strips away nearly everything that made the original fun and enduring.

I am not an expert on the culture so I won't go into that rather I'll just note that I've heard people who are say that this gets a lot wrong.

I'm gonna talk some about the areas where this isn't terrible. The Cinematography with a number of sweeping shots and the gorgeous sets and locations do make for some genuinely engaging visuals.

Honestly the action choreography is decent for Americans attempting this. I mean obviously it doesn't hold a candle to the actual classics.

It is however marred by very choppy stilted awkward editing during those bits. Most of the changes feel arbitrary and rarely improve. What comes the closest is the witch character who is essentially what Mulan hypothetically could end up as if things go horribly wrong but it botches it for reasons that I can't go into since I'm avoiding giving too much away.

This removes most of the interesting elements and waters down what little it leaves behind. The decision to basically turn the titular character Is clearly purely a financial one because that's the kind of thing that makes the big bucks these days but it completely undermines the entire story.

I'm really glad that after this we did at least get The Little Mermaid which was substantially better than this. I do also have to mention how much of a loss it is not have the musical numbers here. Several of the best songs of all of Disney appear in that movie and in this they at most get little like motifs that feel like they're making fun of us for wishing that there was more than that. This does at least have slightly more color than The Lion King 2019. 6/10.

There's so many things to love here so I'll just briefly get the only negatives out of the way. It's too bad they couldn't have gone with an all Chinese American cast though everyone is great.

There is some fat phobia and arguably misogyny. The latter is especially frustrating considering that it's about and largely does well at female empowerment. I'm not the right person to comment on potential transphobia so I'm not going to.

I've heard from those who used to live in China that this is very culturally accurate and largely respectful. They do a really good job of making the honor centric nature clear to a western audience without it feeling like we're being beaten over the head with it.

This has some of the best musical numbers of the studio chief among them being let's get down to business and reflections. It handles Mulan's ark rather well and countless young people have been able to recognize themselves in her.

There are perhaps too many sidekicks. The dog especially feels like it's there to sell toys and I say that as someone who loves dogs.

This delivers everything that we expect from Disney. It's clever, funny, sweet, with catchy songs and amazing animation. They capture nuances tremendously well and the use of color and lighting our breathtaking. 8/10.

I don't know if I'm going to be able to cover every single aspect here but I'm going to try. Let's get the only few issues out of the way first.

Like other of Robert Zemeckis work This can be very misogynistic and racist at times. I appreciate that some might say it goes with The genre here but I would argue that it could easily have been avoided.

Pretty much everything else about this I absolutely love. This feels like they made a film noir that required them to travel to an alternate universe where we coexist with toons.

There are lines of dialog that come right out of a bogey Bacall joint. Not to mention how they place the camera. The mystery is also engrossing and you find yourself trying to guess the answer which for my money is completely satisfying.

It's noted elsewhere how much work it was to make this mix of two 2D and live action happen at all so I won't spend forever on it. I am in awe of their work and deeply admire the dedication here to doing things that we just hadn't seen before.

Cinematography really pushes what you can do with hand drawn. The countless cameos and references are a lot of fun. Acting is strong. Christopher Lloyd delivers yet another iconic performance.

The message is important and largely well handled albeit there are a few Unfortunate potential regressive takeaways from it. World building is great. It genuinely feels like you could step into Toontown yourself if you only knew where it was. 8/10.