Title: Mulan
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Director: Niki Caro
Starring: Yifei Liu, Donnie Yen, Li Gong
Runtime: 1 hr 55 mins

What It Is: With a war impending every family in every village of China must send a man to fight. For his village and his family Zhou (Tzi Ma), who has only daughters must go. This despite his accelerated age. His daughter Mulan (Liu) sneaks away to live out her aspirations as a soldier. Under the guise of a man, she will train and fight for her country. But when her cover is blown how will the army, lead by Commander Tung (Yen) react to what they perceive as treason.

What We Think: This, like most of the live-action remakes from the house of mouse, is an absolute bore. Turning a film like this into a war “epic” was misplaced confidence in the source material. Kudos goes to Disney for it’s all Chinese cast in a movie…you know ABOUT China. I think they thought that that would be enough to skate by on. It isn’t. This script is bleh. Director Niki Caro has shown she’s extremely talented in her previous works but there’s just nothing to work with here. Visually this is a stunning film…but with Disney’s budget that should be an expectation. You don’t get a pass for being inclusive. You don’t get a pass for being pretty. Stale, wooden acting, and a paper thing rewrite don’t impress me.

Our Grade: D, Being boring is something Disney is just happy with at this point. Captain Marvel, literally EVERY one of these remakes outside of Cinderella is just a by the numbers piece of schlock. Change in the house of mouse may indeed need to be had. Look at what they’ve done to properties like Star Wars. It’s to the point that I just sort of expect an uninteresting experience to have to simply “get through”. At some point, the audiences will tire of this. I hope it’s soon. Whether it be Marvel, Star Wars or their own IP Disney is just in the business of going through the motions and making money off of clout. STOP BUYING THIS GARBAGE and we won’t have to deal with it anymore. Send a strong message that diversity is of utter importance but so is trying. I’m so very tired of this mediocrity from Disney. It’s offensive to audiences to think they’re stupid enough to ingest whatever you give them.