Tag: Disney Live Action

REVIEW: ‘Snow White’ is an aggressively mediocre remake

Hi ho, hi ho, a walk through the uncanny valley we go.

The latest adaptation of the “Snow White” story and the most recent in a string of live action remakes of classic Disney animated features stars Rachel Zegler in the titular role. After the loss of her mother, Snow White, a princess, sees her father get remarried to a mysterious woman (Gal Gadot).

A short time later, Snow White’s father disappears and is assumed dead, allowing the woman to assume power as queen, to which she uses to become an authoritarian ruler. Seeing her stepdaughter as a threat, the Queen sets out to have Snow White killed, but the princess escapes and on the outskirts of the kingdom, meets new friends and allies.

Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘Snow White’ is an aggressively mediocre remake”

REVIEW: ‘The Little Mermaid’ sets new bar for Disney’s live adaptations

After some rough waters with previous live action adaptations, Disney has found calmer seas thanks to an impressive remake of “The Little Mermaid.”

As the story goes, Ariel (Halle Bailey) is a mermaid fascinated by the human world and often looks for man-made items lost at sea. These actions, though, are all forbidden by Ariel’s father King Triton (Javier Bardem), who deems humans as dangerous.

This eventually leads to a conflict where Triton forbids Ariel from leaving the kingdom after she rescues a man during a sinking. Wanting to meet him again and explore the surface world, Ariel bypasses her father and goes to the sea witch Ursula (Melissa McCarthy) who turns her into a human, but with a catch.

Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘The Little Mermaid’ sets new bar for Disney’s live adaptations”

REVIEW: ‘Cruella’ constricted by tonal imbalance

Hero. Antihero. Villain. Can a protagonist be all three? “Cruella” attempts to find out.

Emma Stone stars as Estella in this supposed prequel to the “101 Dalmatians” story. Estella, born with white and black hair, is a girl who was orphaned at a young age when her mother fell from a balcony during a party. Following the death, Estella finds her way to London and meets Jasper and Horace. The three become friends and pull schemes together to make money in order to survive.

Eventually, though, Estella gets her chance to leave her life of pick-pocketing and get her dream job as a fashion designer. Eventually, she gets to work for London’s top fashion individual, who simply goes by The Baroness (Emma Thompson). The more she works there, though, the more Estella finds reason to let out her true self, Cruella, and conquer the fashion world.

Continue reading “REVIEW: ‘Cruella’ constricted by tonal imbalance”