After delaying and delaying and refusing to succumb to the high price tag, I finally broke down and paid for “unlocking” the new live action Mulan on Disney+. I feel like a chump since it’s coming “free” to the service in December… but have decided to not go back to the theater just yet for the theatrical-only releases (New Mutants and Tenet, mainly) so was feeling a little big-budget Hollywood withdrawal. It wouldn’t have been so bad – falling for Disney’s trick – if the movie had been just a little better.
So Mulan is allegedly the live action remake of the 90s Mulan animated film… but when you are telling the story of a thousand year old myth, is it really a remake if you’ve left out the most pertinent alterations to the original story? By which I mean this new film does not feature a talking dragon played by Eddie Murphy (much to its detriment), it doesn’t have songs, and it doesn’t have animated ghosts. It’s like saying if Disney made a new Robin Hood movie that it’s automatically a remake of the (kinda bad) Robin Hood animation, even if it doesn’t star anthropomorphic foxes and bears.
Anyhow, this is the Chinese legend of the daughter who dresses as a man to take her elderly father’s place in the army to defend the kingdom. I guess it does follow some of the plot beats that may not be in the original legend (as far as my understanding of that legend goes) but it alters enough to be its own film.
And that film is… well… it’s ok. It certainly is visually striking… it’s beautiful and colorful and they do great work with visual effects. Some of the action scenes – whether its battles between armies or one-on-one martial arts combat – are between pretty good and kind of impressive. The camera work – while not being particularly original – does some neat stuff as it rotates and spins to follow the action.
Unfortunately, the whole movie has a kind of jagged feel to it. It’s like the Cliff’s Notes version of a complete story. Like we’re watching an outline full of half-completed scenes. There are so many jarringly short/abrupt sequences that the film seems like its in fast forward. Nothing takes time to breath, there’s very few character moments, and we never take time to learn who the characters really are. And even some of the good parts feel abrupt… especially the final confrontation which feels like someone started hitting me with a wiffle ball bat for all the impact it had.
As far as the actress playing Mulan goes… she’s going for stoic and bad ass but kind of goes all the way around to emotionless automaton at times. Her no-fear courage face just looks dead to me too. Which doesn’t mean she doesn’t have some emotional range sometimes when dealing with her guilt or crisis of conscience. And she is surrounded by a number of legends of Chinese cinema like Jet Li, Donnie Yen, and some other recognizable stars.
They did make a curious change to the story (both the original and the Disney one)… Mulan is now a Wushu chi-wielding wire-fu Crouching Tiger Jedi Master from day 1. She just hides her skills from the men in the army for reasons (to be fair, they show her training from a child so the floating wire-work kung-fu doesn’t come from nowhere). But it does feel jarring and out of place… though the movie also has shape-shifting witches and bad guys who run up walls so we’re clearly operating in a heightened reality in the first place. And it does look lovely and impressive at times so I guess no ultimate harm.
For the record, Mulan is a born badass in the original myths and, in the Disney version, works harder and smarter than the rest to gain the ability to fight the invaders. I kind of wish they had gone either of these routes instead of torturing the concept of chi into Jedi master abilities.
Well, that’s about it. This isn’t the worst of the Disney Live Action remakes but it’s also one of the more disappointing ones since they did get pretty close to doing something that wasn’t slavishly devoted to the original. I just think they might have had to trim too much or the editor and director thought they could get away with massively abbreviated scenes. I wanted more humanity or more story or more of what was seemingly cut out. But it is a good looking film and if you aren’t so critical, you’ll probably maybe dig it. I just wouldn’t get out my shovel until December when it stops costing thirty bucks to unlock.
Score: 76