Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures | Release Date (Streaming): September 4, 2020 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
29
Mixed:
21
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews
The PlaylistSep 3, 2020
An epic coming of age journey with scale and spectacle, and rousing heart, Mulan, is a triumph and essentially boils down to a wholehearted tale of feminine resolve, proving the boys wrong and making a father proud while being true to one’s self. That sounds a little simplistic, but Caro’s movie has surprising layers, of color, contour, and shade to shape her magnificent new empowering fairy tale.
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Shooting largely on New Zealand’s South Island, Caro has a beautiful knack for fluid transitions: the witch entering the body of an unsuspecting traveler in silhouetted shadow, for example, or a simple, fixed composition of Mulan riding from one side of the screen to the other, in extreme long shot. The dizzying wuxia martial arts action, with warriors sprinting up, down and sideways, defying gravity, propel the action scenes without overwhelming them.
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Beautiful. Even on the small screen. Yes, it’s a shame that American audiences won’t be able to see Niki Caro’s spectacular live-action epic “Mulan” in theaters, but the good news is this is such a great-looking film, with amazing set pieces and dazzling action and colors so vibrant they would dazzle a Crayola factory, it will still play well on your home monitor.
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IndieWireSep 3, 2020
Mulan is perhaps the best example of how to marry the original with something fresh. The Ballad of Mulan has always been an epic-scale story about the power of being yourself in a world not ready to accept that, a tale that will likely always have resonance. In Niki Caro’s “Mulan,” that story elegantly and energetically moves forward, a timeless message made for right now.
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PolygonSep 3, 2020
Mulan handily clears the bar set by live-action duds like The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, but it still fails to recapture the magic of the movie it’s adapting. It forgoes the strongest ideas in the animated film (the songs and the humble origins of heroism) in order to try to tell a more conventional story.
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This more lenient attitude toward the original 1998 film has allowed director Niki Caro to be less reverent in her approach. The result is satisfyingly fresh. 2020’s Mulan follows the same general trajectory as its predecessor but numerous changes – some small, some large – have given it a unique identity.
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Somber and serious-minded, the live-action Mulan is a movie that has grown up alongside its original audience, which is presumably old enough to crave something heavier in its entertainment diet. Little girls might be better off sticking with the cartoon for now; but this opulent, ambitious production and Liu’s focused, intrepid performance at its center, gives them something to grow into.
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Sumptuously designed, brightly costumed and shot with an eye toward epic grandeur, the new film is simply gorgeous to take in, no matter the size of the screen. Less pretty is the script, which took four screenwriters to conjure even though there’s perfectly good source material just sitting there, waiting for a photocopy machine.
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Mulan is big, sumptuous entertainment. It's good, but not great, transforming the story associated with the 1998 animated musical into a song-free, live-action movie that's more adequate than transcendent -- a perfectly reasonable family-viewing investment that's worth seeing, but not necessarily a must-buy.
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There is more good than bad in Mulan, and we should be so lucky to get a gorgeous and inspiring war epic that is suitable for children to watch. Mulan might even inspire some kids to dip their toes into all that Asian cinema has to offer, which would be the best possible outcome. But something has to give in this blind fealty to the animated films, because it’s getting in the way of greatness.
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Mulan emerges as a curious act of market negotiation. It is a perfectly fine movie; it will no doubt be meaningful for children, especially those who could afford to see more of themselves onscreen in heroines like Mulan. But its cast, its attitude, its overall eagerness to please — all benefits, one would think — don’t add up to a good movie. They add up to a blueprint of the movie this ought to be.
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It is a visually enthralling, high-gloss commercial for state power and repressive constructs. This is a product precisely tooled to be what the global marketplace demands of entertainment that is this expensive to make—a win for capitalism that will leave many filmgoers who found a powerful reflection of themselves in the original film feeling like they’ve lost something important and essential.
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