Gillipedia Official Rating: Glad I didn’t spend $30 to watch this
Sweating more than an engineer in an
English class, Disney execs were hard at work to figure out how they could recoup
all the production costs for their live-action update of Mulan set to
hit theaters back in March to satisfy the stockholders. After multiple delays
the solution was to bring the film to the Disney+ streaming service. But this was
way too big a movie to simply release straight to a monthly service. Films like
Trolls World Tour paved the way for films to still make money in 2020—on-demand.
Not only did a person have to have a subscription for Disney+, but they would
also have to hand over an extra $30 to the mouse himself ($20 was the price for
Trolls). I’m here to say that even gathering a group of 5-10 to watch Mulan
wouldn’t make that price point worth it. Hearing that the film would stream for
free on the service probably in December, I gladly waited to watch it. To be
fair I wasn’t all that excited for the film to begin with just because of all
the fatigue I already have from these unnecessary updated remakes, but alas.
Here we are. I’ve watched Mulan. Read this review so that you don’t have
to. This is not a good film by any standard.
There’s a couple different complaints
that will be recurring throughout, so I’ll address them here and then give some
examples down the road as we progress through the story. First and foremost,
the editing is atrocious. Some of this I believe is on the filmmakers and not
just on the editors, but it’s bad no matter who is to blame. The film is
chopped up in pieces where a single action may require 4-5 cuts, and it’s so
jarring. What I wonder about is the footage shot in some scenes. If what the
filmmakers got in a day wasn’t any good, then the editor now has to somehow
hide it while still showing what happens so the movie can go on. So I’m under
the impression that at least for some shots, the editors looked at the footage
they were given, said f this, and added 17 cuts and moved on.
The other sin Mulan continuously
makes is what The Rise of Skywalker suffered from. Mulan comes in
just under 2 hours, and to reach that time limit, character development is
thrown to the wind in favor of story beats and exposition. This is most glaring
with Mulan’s fellow soldiers. While the animated film had clearly defined
characters, everyone outside the 4 most important characters here are
practically nameless faces that serve to try to provide comic relief and
support. The end result is a film pretty to look at, but without any substance
or technical prowess. Let’s see where exactly things
went wrong.
Well first let’s address the lack of
dragon in the room, there’s no Mushu. Considering the poor attempts at comedy
the film does make in an otherwise DC-esque serious film, Mushu probably would’ve
felt out of place. But then again, he’s also most likely the element that the
film was in desperate need of. Li Shang is also gone, split into a decent love
interest fellow soldier and a traditional commander.
From the very first scene, another new
element to this film is the addition of chi. I have no idea why Mulan
decides it needs a Force power, but okay. For whatever reason Mulan is born
with an extraordinary amount of chi, something typically reserved for warriors.
And just like how I felt Rey shouldn’t need to be a Palpatine to justify her
powers instead of, you know, being born out of nothing and simply becoming
something (tiny apology from me for that Rise of Skywalker spoiler by
the way), now Mulan doesn’t feel like this empowering message where she works
just as hard if not harder to show her worth; she still works hard, but it
feels less important knowing that she simply was born with lots of chi to help
her out.
Early on Mulan goes to the Matchmaker
of their village with her family to pour some tea and find a husband. It feels
like they tried to emulate My Fair Lady where the scene builds up in a
way that ends with a big joke, but it all just falls flat. She uses the pot to
trap a spider, but Old Hag Matchmaker doesn’t see the spider and demands the
pot be brought back to the middle of the table. Mulan finally relents, the
spider is released, Matchmaker flips the table in hysteria, and all the silverware
breaks. Maybe this came off as hilarious to people and I’m just a cynic, but
this didn’t land with me. It’s also one of only a few attempts of humor in the
film. So strap in for a fun ride.
If you’re somehow not familiar with
the story, the Rouran are the new bad guys instead of the Huns and are looking
to invade China and reach the emperor. The emperor declares a creed for one man
from every family to fight, and Mulan secretly takes her father’s place. The
film proceeds to switch between the training camp for soldiers with Mulan, and
the Rouran with baddies Bori Khan and the witch Xianniang. I do have to give
credit here where there’s some really nice landscape shots, and the production
design of the sets and costumes is really beautiful. But that’s really where
the praise ends. One of the first scenes is the Rouran destroying a village,
and one prominent shot from the trailer is them running up a wall and the
camera is sideways. This technique of turning the camera sideways, like when
shooting on an iPhone and switching from landscape to portrait, looks really
neat here, but it gets overplayed the next 3 times it’s done.
In one expositional scene, Bori Khan
is saying something, and one of his henchman is ambitious enough to show defiance.
When he speaks he’s hunched over and sitting, so of course we have to have a
cut to him now sitting upright and moving to stand up. For one thing this is bad
from a continuity standpoint, but it’s just one of many examples of unnecessary
cuts. Like why couldn’t he say his line and -get this- stand up in the same
shot? Similarly, there’s a scene in the barracks where Mulan and the soldiers
are enjoying lunch and cracking jokes. One joke gets everyone to laugh, so the
film proceeds to cut 4-5 times to show each person during the duration of the
laughs. This was particularly jarring, and again, did they not have a wide shot
they could’ve shown or just cut once or twice? It’s hard for the film to find
any flow or rhythm when it’s constantly being broken up.
The duration of Mulan’s time at the
training camp is probably the closest the film tries harkening back to the
original. A couple scenarios are played for laughs, such as Mulan entering the
barracks at night where all the men are in various states of undress, and one
plumpy fellow gets his towel ripped off. I don’t think Mulan’s actress does
anything particularly wrong, but the timing is off, so again, I put that on the
filmmakers. Keep in mind that there are so many scenes that there isn’t much
time spent in any of them. Everything goes from point A to B without taking
time in between, and it takes away any emotional weight from the characters or
story. Like we spend 2 minutes around a campfire where a joke or two is told
but not learning any backstory from the characters, the next scene shows a pile
of helmets and bodies strewn across a battlefield, and the characters take one
somber glance and move on.
So at this point we’ve probably only
covered about half the film. And while watching the movie, the most prominent
feeling I had at this point was simply of boredom. I think my opinion of the
film can be summed up as it being fine to have on while you complete chores
around the house. Paying attention to the story isn’t very important with
nothing complex going on, so it’s fine to have it play in the background and
check in once and while without being invested in the stakes.
Oh hey, I did think of another
compliment to give. There’s a scene with the Rouran on horseback, and in order
to fight against the Chinese behind them, they perform this cool move where
they touch the ground with their feet and immediately jump up and flip over so
that they’re riding but now facing backward. That was a cool stunt. But to give
an example of the nonsensical action, there’s another scene with shades from
the original where the Rouran are on higher ground. The witch lady turned into
1000 bats or something and attack the Chinese, forcing them to group together.
The enemies bring a catapult and start launching flaming boulders with pinpoint
accuracy. Mulan sees that her comrades, her battle buddies, her peas in a pod
if you will, her ride or dies, her friends of the boy variety are in danger.
She notices a mountainside with built up snow behind the Rouran and knows that
even though she is currently in front of them, she needs to sneak behind the
Rouran. One shot shows her jumping on her horse and grabbing a helmet. Then,
literally in the next shot, wham bam shang-a-lang, she’s now behind them. Cue
the white guy blinking and shaking his head meme because how did that just
happen? That’s not even the last dumb thing to happen. She fires some arrows at
them, and they shoot a boulder at her, but they got a little excited because
they over crank that catapult by a long shot, and the boulder goes flying
behind Mulan and causes an avalanche. What’s worse than it not making sense is
the simple fact that it’s just not entertaining. It’s just watered down moments
from the original but now in live-action and bloated.
Let’s just move on to the climax
because I can’t take too much more. The emperor falls for a trap, and the next
5 movie seconds I blame on the filmmakers and not the editor. There are Rouran soldiers
above the emperor, and they shoot arrows with rope around the emperor. They run
around the rooftop, and the next shot is the emperor helplessly being tied up.
It’s very quick, but it’s still clearly not an action that then correlates to
the next. It’s like they have an idea for the action, and the producers ask, “Well,
how do you plan on filming this?” And the director replied with, “We’ll figure
it out.”
Spoiler alert for the following
paragraph. Like you care. But now I have plausible deniability that I warned
you. Anyways. When the witch lady dies, I honestly gave out a slight chuckle.
Bori Khan shoots an arrow at Mulan, and witch lady transforms into an eagle to
take the arrow. First off, I don’t know why Mulan’s chi would fail her here, but
since they gave witch lady a redemption arc, she obviously couldn’t be alive at
the end and somehow had to be a sacrifice. The part that got me was the shot
where they obviously told the Mulan actress to feign catching a dying eagle.
She’s running and she reaches out her arms and it’s simply not well executed.
It’s also, again, super quick and deprived of emotional weight.
A lot of people have already made fun
of the final swordfight between Mulan and Bori Khan, so I won’t spend too long,
but yeah, it’s bad. There’s lots of grunting, Mulan loses her sword in a way
that doesn’t make sense, and the whole thing is cut to death. There’s also a
faux death so that Mulan can do one last backflip chi kick.
The biggest moment of conflict
probably came when Mulan came out as a woman and she was kicked out of the
army. She leaves, talks to the witch for a scene, realizes the emperor is in
trouble, then heads back to camp to warn them. After the commander threatens
her with death, her fellow soldiers, her brother-in-arms, her brothers from
other mothers, her entourage, her co-workers that she gladly converses with but
wouldn’t necessarily hang out with in a social setting, unite in Spartacus
fashion, and everyone teams up again. If this movie were a dish, it would be tartare,
which is fine, but what was needed was a stew constantly simmering. Look, bad
metaphors aside, this film fails on most levels. I was surprised to see this
film still hold a 73% certified fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but the 49%
audience score is more telling. Maybe you’ll watch this film and enjoy it. And
that’s fine. If the original Mulan didn’t exist, I could see this film potentially
being hailed for the progressive move of its representation and culturally
accurate cast; however, there are two things wrong with this thought. For one
thing I think the film falls fatally short of providing positive messaging, in
particular because of the inclusion of chi, but I also recently watched Ralph
Breaks the Internet and that film showcased its message 1000x better than
this film. The second thing wrong is the fact that there already is a Mulan
film that exists, and it is far superior to this one. Even the credits in this
update are too long and bloated at 12 minutes long. If you want to watch a film
like Mulan, go watch something like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Or heck, butter me up and call me a biscuit, slap some buns on me and call me a
burger, make it way too much effort for the small amount of meat I provide and
call me a crawfish because darn tootin’ if I’m not crazy, there’s already an
amazing animated film called Mulan that you can go watch.
Bonus
Review time. Uh ya welcome
Bandersnatch
Gillipedia Official Rating: Make a
choice to choose a different movie
Apparently, there is over 5 hours of footage that can be discovered from watching this special interactive
Black Mirror episode on Netflix. But after spending over an hour with it
and viewing I think 4 of the 5 possible endings, I didn’t have any desire to
see my character choose the other brand of cereal instead. Now this would be
different if I knew there were more wildly branching paths to discover, but I’m
confident I already watched the bulk of the content needed to see, and I’m
disappointed.
Bandersnatch is an interactive
movie where you’re presented with 2 options for the main character to choose
between at various points in the story, ranging in importance like what music
to listen to on a bus to deciding if your character or someone else jumps off a
building. Many of these choices quickly lead to a “game over” type of scenario,
but the film eases the need of having to restart by letting you immediately
choose the other option. I didn’t try too hard to make the right choices, but
even then, it felt like I still did a pretty bad job of which choice to make.
For example, after the character gets frustrated over their game glitching, you
can hit the computer or pour tea over it, one of which results in a game over.
I should also preface all this by
saying this story takes place in 1984 where the main character is a 19-year-old
introvert who is programming a video game with branching paths. He successfully
pitches his game to a company, and he has a deadline to complete it. Other main
characters include his off-putting dad, a well-meaning therapist, and the
always fun Will Poulter who plays a famous video game programmer that seems to
already be aware of parallel pathways.
Since the game your character is
making deals with narrative paths itself, it’s clear pretty early on that the
film is going to show parallels between what you are doing as well as the
character. What could be fun meta honestly turns into too on-the-nose awareness
as well as a story that doesn’t fully satisfy. After having seen about 2 of the
endings, I was convinced I had simply gone down a bad path at some point and
would just need to go in a different direction. That’s not the case. All
endings relatively revolve around similar concepts, and even simply just
reaching most endings will leave you with a sense of, “Wait, that’s it?”
There are some good moments. Following
Will Poulter back to his place leads to an interesting scene full of pointless
ramblings, when the character starts becoming aware that he’s not in control of
everything he does, there’s some fun options, and a later scene with the
therapist goes in a crazy direction that somehow manages to still feel right.
And scenes that you may encounter again will change slightly based on previous
actions (or actions you took later and now have returned to that scene).
I think part of my disappointment is
the whole concept of the story that is aware that you are making choices, but
even then you’re limited to what is presented in front of you. I would’ve been
perfectly fine with a more traditional story that simply differed based on
choices I made. But since this is Black Mirror, there are illusions
everywhere and only hints of social commentary. The end result is a quick story
that doesn’t really have any satisfying ending, and sadly, the journey to get
there is underwhelming as well. For all the philosophical nonsense spewed forth
about free will and choice, Bandersnatch isn’t able to achieve what has
been done so much better by some video games like Detroit: Become Human
and Until Dawn that feature butterfly effects for the choices made and
characters affected. For something that won an Emmy for Television Movie and
seemed really novel and neat, this is a soft pass for me.
In
Brief:
- Christopher Nolan voiced criticism against Warner Bros. for announcing that all of their releases for 2021 will also stream on HBO Max, but I think it’s a move that makes sense for the upcoming year for both the studio and the blossoming streaming service. I understand Nolan’s views on the moviegoing experience, a sentiment I supported as I went to see Tenet in IMAX, but this comes as a necessary move for an industry that’s been rocked by the virus. It also helps that I currently have access to HBO Max, so you better believe I’ll be watching films like Wonder Woman 1984 and Dune from the comfort of my home.
- As I mentioned in Mulan, I recently watched Ralph Breaks the Internet. Some really good jokes there, an interesting message, and fun Easter eggs makes this an animated film worth watching even if it is flawed in a couple areas.
- You can also probably expect me to watch Pixar’s newest film Soul that I believe streams on Disney+ on Christmas. Have to catch up on their latest couple films.
- At some point I will carve out time to re-watch and rank all Marvel films.
- Watched Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 on Netflix. Sorkin knows he has a way with dialogue, so this should be a slam dunk from the guy who wrote my favorite movie A Few Good Men. It’s entertaining, but it doesn’t leave much impact ultimately.
