Change Your Image
previnhudetz
Reviews
We the People (2021)
Artistic, enjoyable, and accurate
For people who want their kids to understand how our government is supposed to work, this is a wonderful series. My children loved the artwork and music, and the songs were beautiful and uplifting. Clearly influenced by School House Rock, this is a delightful modern series the whole family can appreciate.
Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)
Gut Wrenching
This heartbreaking story blew me away.
Watch this if you can.
Mulan (2020)
Visually stunning, emotionally barren
The costumes, sets, action sequences and special effects in this movie were wonderfully done! Kudos to the people involved with that portion of the movie! But in terms of emotional courage in its message, there were so many missed opportunities in this production that I left feeling... not much.
The actors did the best anyone could with the script they had. You can see them giving a solid effort, and they deserve positive recognition for that. But there weren't any brave choices made by the writers, director or producers, and that made the whole film fall flat. In the animated version of Mulan, gender roles and the moral authority of command structures were questioned. They didn't choose to explore that with any emotional depth, this time.
The animated characters weren't perfect icons of virtue and infallibility, and that made them believable. It made them seem human. Unfortunately, in the live action version, we received characters with none of that complexity. It felt like a salute to authority figures, where none of the choices of the privileged ruling class were genuinely questioned. "The Emperor killed my father and stole our land." Yet, somehow the Emperor was still considered worth protecting. That's a hard sell, especially without any explanation.
This version of the story of Mulan apparently operates under the assumption that everyone receives their due so long as they submit to the will of the state. It came off as little more than an overproduced piece of authoritative propaganda.
Oh well. Maybe it'll get another reboot, someday. Until then, flawed as it might be, I'll stick with the animated version.