Here we are with another live-action Disney remake released, and after three this year alone, I'm wondering if we've seen all we can expect. Here's what I mean by that. Disney has some truly spectacular movies in its arsenal. It also has some spectacularly bad movies in its arsenal. Over the last couple of years Disney has tried its hand at remaking spectacular animated movies in live action. The results have been middle of the road at best.
I'm not someone who thinks all remakes will automatically fail. In my heart of hearts I believe the 2010 True Grit is superior to the original (sorry, not sorry). It's the same story for Dredd. With that said, most remakes are worse than the original; Total Recall, Robocop and Ghostbusters to name a few.
While Disney's animated movies are typically the stuff of awesome, with their live-action films the number of great flicks is much lower. Prince of Persia? Any sequel to Pirates of the Carribean? The Lone Ranger? Either of the Alice movies? They're all a warm can of Mountain Dew to me. Far from great.
Then came the news that Disney was going to give this live-action treatment to some of its greatest animated hits. Beauty and the Beast came out, and... it was just OK. The CGI silverware was kind of weird. As much as we love Hermione, she's not the best singer. And while seeing the famous yellow dress was nice, the whole movie just didn't have the magic of its 1991 original.
I'll admit Christopher Robin was quietly charming, but I'm enamoured of anything with Obi-Wan Kenobi in it. And then we came to Dumbo. Allow me a moment to admit I'm biased here. I absolutely hate Dumbo. There are a couple of Disney movies I hate, and Dumbo is one of them. I don't like elephants. I don't like circuses. And the music and story failed to captivate me as a child. Finding Nemo is another Disney (Pixar) movie I hate. And I know that sentence makes me more enemies.
But it wasn't just me. Dumbo's reviews weren't great, despite the best efforts of the walking cliche that is Tim Burton. Even the starpower of Danny DeVito and Michael Keaton couldn't save the movie from crash landing. Wait a second. Burton ... DeVito ... Keaton ... a circus. Was this an attempt to create a backdoor pilot for some future Batman property?
Aladdin came out last month, and here's another bias alert. Aladdin is my absolute favorite Disney movie. I've loved the movie since I was a little kid. What's not to like? Sword fights, magic, Princess Jasmine with a tiger, Robin Williams, Gilbert Gottfried, I could go on and on.
When Robin Williams took his life, I, like the rest of the country, was morose. This was Peter Pan for crying out loud. He was Genie, the perfect voice for a magical figure looking for freedom. You know my favorite fact about Williams? He loved the Legend of Zelda video game series just like I do. He loved it so much, he named his daughter Zelda. I still go back and watch his commercials with her he made for a couple of the games. They're adorable.
Upon seeing the first trailer with Will Smith as a weird blue creation, I thought this film was doomed. I hated it. He looked weird. It was over. It felt like the first reaction to seeing the movie version of Sonic the Hedgehog. No, thank you.
But I still went to see the movie. I laughed and learned to love Will Smith's Genie. I was moved beyond words by Naomi Scott's rendition of the new song "Speechless." When I listen to it, I put that music on repeat so I can get it into my ears about four or five times. Not having Gottfried voice the parrot for a line or two was a mistake, but the rest of the movie was OK. I'm looking forward to watching it again when it gets released on Blu-ray.
That's the problem though. The animated Aladdin is a fantastic movie I love. It's charming. It's daring. It's lovely in every aspect. The live action remake was just OK. It had some things I loved. But overall, it was middle of the road. Sure it got slightly better reviews than Dumbo, and it made more money (which will probably further encourage Disney to keep reaching into our old toy boxes for remakes), but does any of that matter when the film fails to live up to the height of its predecessor?
Could I be blinded by nostalgia on some of these movies? Perhaps. I'm a '90s kid, and we're getting a lot of live-action '90s remakes. I have a distinct memory with The Lion King because it's the first movie I ever got to see in theaters as a kid. Mom took me when we lived in the big town of Flippin, Arkansas (so we probably went to Mountain Home to see it). And I was crying so loud when Mufasa died that we had to leave the theater. I got a second chance to see the full thing on VHS later.
I will watch The Lion King with an open mind, but this is another classic from the Disney Renaissance period of good movies. So it's going to be scrutinized a little more. It can't be helped. Early reviews I've read says it looks fine, but it doesn't live up to the original. Shocker. But again, open mind.
I really enjoyed Jon Favreau's The Jungle Book. He did a perfect job of transitioning an animated classic to live action. I have faith he has given The Lion King his all. So we'll see how good of a job tech CEO and amateur wrestler Pete Becker did here.
And I'll happily admit, the Mulan trailer that was released a little bit ago? It looks really cool. Little Mermaid casting? I'm down to see how Halle Bailey performs. I'll go watch all these Disney remakes to see how the media cash machine did. But if I'm going to be honest, I think overall, I'd probably be happier if these animated classics were left alone.
I'm also not unaware of the irony that by going to see these movies, I become part of the problem, filling theater seats and encouraging Disney to see dollar signs and make more of these adaptations. Maybe they're not directly getting my cash because I'm using AMC Stubbs A-List to watch all these movies, but dangit, they're still making money.
Maybe I'm getting cranky as I inch closer to my 30s. And I just want things I loved in the '90s to stay in the '90s. Or perhaps I'm justified in wanting Disney to spend 100% of its creative energy on new properties and movies, rather than just taking the easy path of remaking old successes. When they make new stuff we get treasures like Moana and Coco. When they rehash old stuff, we get Dumbo. I know which I'd rather have.
If we're just going to keep rehashing old stuff, I'd like another Tron installment please. Cap off that trilogy right.
MovieStyle on 07/19/2019