Mulan (2020) Movie Review

Mulan (2020)

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Written by: Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver and Elizabeth Martin  & Lauren Hynek (screenplay by), Anonymous (suggested by: the narrative poem "The Ballad of Mulan", uncredited)
Directed by: Niki Caro
Starring: Yifei Liu, Donnie Yen, Li Gong, Jet Li, Jason Scott Lee
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer

Plot
A young Chinese maiden disguises herself as a male warrior in order to save her father.

Verdict
This doesn't gain any points for originality. It's a nice story, and the action has some great moments, but this still has the issue of being a Disney live action remake of a cartoon. The movie strives to recreate the cartoon scene for scene and ends up being a nostalgia trip, but not much more. I wish it would take a few steps farther into the fantastical for the battles or take a few steps back and focus on being realistic. It tries to do both and while that works in a cartoon, it doesn't play out in live action. That's a similar conclusion I've had with all of these Disney remakes.
It depends.

Review
A live action movie can't capture the fantastic qualities of animation. These Disney remakes try to straddle the line somewhere between realism and fantasy. It always seems to be uneven. I wish the Disney live action remakes would pick one. This movie has some great action sequences, but it's a story that's anything but original if you've already seen Mulan (1998). The other remakes, Dumbo, Aladdin, and The Lion King traffic in nostalgia, but this one is a bit newer and didn't seem to reach the classic status as the other aforementioned movies. Because of that, this seems like a remake that should be better than the original, but instead we get a paint by the numbers style of movie.

Yifei Liu plays Mulan.

It's easy to root for Mulan. She's born into a culture where men rule and have all the advantages. Mulan makes a huge gamble to pose as a male in the army. It's somewhat hard to believe no one realizes, but Mulan is the greatest warrior in her company. 

While I like the action, Mulan has abilities beyond natural humans. It's always strange in context since her abilities are so far beyond. If this contained more wire-fu like in Hero (2002) where everyone could defy gravity and Mulan is just better than anyone else it would be more believable. The only other character with powers beyond normal is the witch, and that's just par for the trade.

This has a happy ending, of course it does being Disney, but I didn't like how one of the villains helps Mulan. It didn't track. We see the movie trying to set it up, but the execution didn't work.

There's a great movie hidden somewhere here. Disney is blocking creativity by forcing the script to follow the original so closely. I would love to see a movie that pushes wire fighting to capitalize on the style it would give Mulan. With everyone wire fighting, that would make her fighting even more graceful without making her superhuman. Giving the villains a credible reason for their attacks and developing them more would also help round out the script.