If you've seen the original then you already know the basics of the story here. Mulan grew up as a young girl in China most likely around the years 300-600. She was an adventurous girl who often found trouble for herself and her family, unlike the other young girls who were proper and well mannered. She showed a lot of promise in her movement and agility, something that wasn't really important for women to have, but a future warrior to have. As a woman Mulan was set to find a husband, be a great wife, and bring honor to her family in that way. It's something she wanted no part it, but honoring the family is important in Chinese culture. Everything changes though when China faces a big threat in northern invaders with a very powerful army led by a man with great power and a woman with supernatural abilities by his side. All families in China must provide one male to join the army and create a force big enough to fight off the invaders. Mulan's father is the only man in the family and must go to war, but he's already fought for his country in the past and suffered an injury to his leg that forces him to walk with a cane. Mulan sneaks off with his armor and blade to take his place and pretend to be a man in an army that doesn't allow women.
It's a classic story, one that's already set up pretty well in its message of equality. The movie does that part well, making that message loud and clear while still being true to the culture it's taking a part of. The movie also stars a Chinese cast, with some big names like Jet Li, Rosalind Chao, Tzi Ma, and Donnie Yen as well as a lot of newcomers (at least in Hollywood). All the actors do a great job, though some don't really get a lot of screentime. Then there are the visuals which are at times pretty amazing and other times a little too CGI, but it's not too bad, it's something you'll probably be used to from big studio movies like this now. Some of the sets are pretty spectacular though, but you'd expect that from a high budget Disney movie, but even knowing that it's still really nice to see.
All that to say that I felt pretty whelmed by this movie. With its recent quality of live-action remakes being pretty poor (Aladdin, Lion King, Dumbo were all pretty bad) I went into this with lower expectations than usual. I think that those expectations were surpassed, but not by much. The movie is entertaining for sure and it was pretty easy to sit through its two-hour runtime. I guess the problem for me was with the characters, as I didn't really care about most of them very much. The movie doesn't really take a lot of time to get you to really know who most of them are outside of Mulan, especially her fellow soldiers. They aren't really given enough time or dialog for you to really care about them individually, I had a hard time remembering which one was which since they don't really do a good job at making any of them unique outside of their appearances. The main villain also feels pretty generic and doesn't really feel very threatening at all.
The action is pretty well done, with a mix of more realistic sword battles and over-the-top choreography where people are running on walls and doing a bunch of flips and kicking spears mid-air or catching arrows with their hands. It can be pretty fun to watch, though sometimes the over-the-top stuff felt a bit much for me, almost like Star Wars levels of crazy action. There were a few times where the screen would rotate along with the action that felt more disorienting then they probably meant it to, it was an interesting gimmick but one that I didn't particularly love. Overall though it was mostly well-constructed action scenes that were pretty enjoyable. Though, there are some supernatural abilities that I wish they had explained a little more. At times it feels like Mulan is just superpowered to move the story along without having to show her growth too much. Instead of showing her get better through training and hard work, it's more about her learning to stop being afraid to use her superpowers in front of people, which is a little less relatable to me.
One thing this movie felt like it lacked was a bit of humor, though they did try to put some in there now and then it mostly fell pretty flat. Not that every movie has to be funny, but I think a movie like this probably needs it. I know it's probably hard to translate a lot of the humor of the original to this new one because a lot of it was animation based or featured a talking dragon as comic relief. None of that is in this new one, it would have felt out of place if it had been, but the movie just needed a little more light-hearted tones in the story to maybe make the characters more likable and the movie less dark and overly serious. Mulan herself lacked a bit of personality too and that hurt the story and the flow of the movie too. Thankfully she did have some strong moments of growth and learning that made a lot of sense.
The Mulan remake is overall a solid movie, definitely one of the better ones (though I guess the bar is pretty low). It almost feels like this would have been one of the first live-action remakes that Disney made because it feels like a good blueprint for live-action remakes along with Cinderella or Jungle Book. But after so many misses it's nice to see one that actually hits and actually tries to do different things, even if it doesn't always work. There's still the problem of Disney's failure at making new and interesting movies/franchises. To me, this movie feels like it was what it needed to be, but it didn't try to exceed that or be something bigger. There was the potential here for a great movie somewhere here. At the end of it, I still find myself just wanting to go back and watch the original, and if I ever want to see this story told again that's exactly where I'm going to go back to, the original.
Overall Grade: C-
An okay movie that's worthy of a single watch. Not worth 30 dollars though, so if you can wait a few months until it's free on Disney+ or maybe cheaper I'd say do that. Definitely good for families with children, they'll probably enjoy this a lot more. It yet again feels like Disney doesn't fully understand what made those original animated movies so good, to begin with. If you're going to make a movie, it should be because you have an idea for a different take or a way to make it better. It shouldn't feel forced just because it's a sure-fire way to make tons of money out of a beloved classic movie that people are going to go see by name recognition alone. This movie doesn't improve anything from the original and all its new ideas mostly fall flat or are comparatively worse than the animated. It's competent sure, but it's nothing beyond that and it fails at leaving any sort of lasting impression beyond its good message about women, equality, and being true to yourself.
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