Review: Mulan (2020)

 So let's talk about the Disney live-action trend.

Honestly, that's what most of this post is going to be about because honestly, I have very little to say about Mulan (2020) itself.  You want my review of the movie in a nutshell?  I appreciate it for at least differentiating itself from the multiple other live-action material Disney has done of late.  It tries new things.  It tries to be different.  It's faithful to its lore while not being an absolute insult to the viewers to an extent...outside of some bizarre witchcraft nonsense that I still don't completely understand why they added it in the first place.  Which yeah, it's too bad the new spins this movie adds aren't interesting.  And most of the movie consists of VERY wooden acting, outside of Jet Li as The Emperor.  I'm very glad that Disney did not make this a shot for shot remake.  That is what makes this immediately better than most of the crap we've gotten from this trend in the last three years in particular.  But just because it's different doesn't mean this isn't interesting.

Final Grade: C-

Now that I got that out of the way, let's go ahead and talk about this trend and why it had potential to begin with...only to become as soulless of a cash grab as it has become.

I've been alive for thirty years now.  I grew up with Disney animation films when I was a kid just like many of you reading this probably have.  And you know what else I grew up with?  Many direct to video retellings of Disney animated films.  Do you know how many bad variations I had to sit through of Cinderella?  Snow White?  The Little Mermaid?  Peter Pan?  Pinocchio?  And many other film properties?  Countless.  And it's not just direct to video.  There have been MANY shitty theatrical films that Disney had no part of.

So when Disney decided ten years ago to make a live action version of Alice In Wonderland, I didn't blame them a single bit.  Why not make their own live-action adaptations of their movies?  After all, countless studios before them were doing it and still are today.  It's not like Disney isn't allowed to be like everyone else.  If it is making other studios money, why not capitalize?

And you know what?  It's not like all of them have been bad.  When this trend first started, Disney was making them different than their animated counterparts.  Alice in Wonderland may have more or less been trying to capitalize on the 3D trend of the 2010's. but I appreciated the fact they were trying to make it a sequel to the animated film.  Maleficent gave us an outsider's perspective to The Sleeping Beauty lore.  The Jungle Book at least experimented with new technology to make the animals as real as CGI can get away with and didn't completely stay true to the original.  And then there's Cinderella, which is honestly my favorite of the bunch for making all the characters three dimensional and not as wooden and hollow outside of the Wicked Stepmother from the cartoon.

But over the last three years, Disney has gotten lazy.  From Beauty and The Beast to Aladdin to The Lion King to even Disney+'s Lady and the Tramp, these were barely films and more like major theatrical stage productions of their respective counterparts.  Some of these films were shot for shot remakes.  Others had maybe five minutes of new material each that weren't worth the time and effort.  It's worth questioning if Disney was even trying anymore and became as complacent as the studios that remade their animated films before them?  Just solely trying to make hundreds of millions of dollars.  It's a fair question.  This isn't some D-level studio that would be lucky to make its money back.  This is the mega-conglomerate that is worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Am I a fan of this live-action trend?  At the very least, I understand it.  Like I said earlier, for years, their was proof that their was money to be made off of it.  But am I happy with the direction its headed?  No.  Because I completely expect the consumers to catch on at some point and expect more of Disney with these.  I'll give Mulan (2020) credit for at least not being as super faithful to the original animation.  This is what I want to an extent from future Disney live-action films.