The Princess and the Frog (2009)

Posted on October 25, 2011 by badblokebob

With box office and critical acclaim sliding, Disney abandoned traditional 2D animation for their significant films in the early ’00s, switching to the computer-animated 3D that was doing so well for Pixar and Dreamworks. I don’t know if it helped the box office any, but it didn’t help with critics — it wasn’t the medium that was at fault, it was the storytelling. Notoriously, as soon as Pixar’s John Lasseter was put in creative control of the whole of Disney he instituted a return to 2D animation. The Princess and the Frog was the much-heralded first film after this change.

The resultant film is very enjoyable — not because it’s in 2D animation, but because it’s just good. Set in ’20s New Orleans, it retells the well-known story of a prince turned into a frog who needs a kiss to return to human form in typical Disney style: expanded, funny, contemporary, with songs. And that largely works. OK, so no individual song is exceptionally memorable, but their jazzy style suits the film down to the ground. There are no bad or dull ones (not something that can be said of even some classic Disneys, in my opinion) and all are certainly entertaining while they last. Though it’s a little brief, the villain once again gets the pick of the bunch. I’m biased that way though; others may well disagree.

It’s also a bit long. A tighter opening and, especially, journey through the bayou in the middle would’ve improved it. While I enjoyed sequences like the crocodiles, guiding fireflies or frog-hunters when considered in isolation, there are just too many stacked up back to back for my taste. The voodoo material seems like it might be a bit on the scary side for kids, though maybe that’s just because too many children’s films are sanitised these days — I agree with the regular argument that it was better when films and TV aimed at kids included a bit of a scare or sadness, rather than more modern entertainment’s attempts to keep them wrapped in cotton wool for too long. The death of a character in the climax also sits in the same vein.

One thing that can’t be faulted, however, is the animation. It’s beautifully done: backgrounds are gorgeously painted, character animation is fast and fluid. There are some stunning individual shots, like when the fireflies become involved in creating glorious lighting and patterns in the bayou, for instance. There’s a nice use of different styles when appropriate too: a blocky art deco rendering of Tiana’s dream restaurant during Almost There; a splash of something hallucinogenically psychedelic during Dr Facilier’s number.

Many other Disney films have stand-out sequences; things to latch an appreciation on to. The best often have several of these stacked up, in some cases non-stop from start to finish. The Princess and the Frog is missing anything like that (though some may grab on to Almost There or, like me, Facilier’s song), but what it has instead is a very consistent tone, where the musical numbers fit effortlessly into the flow of the story rather than stopping the film for a showpiece. This is also true of the very best entries in the canon — Beauty and the Beast, for arguably the greatest example — and while I don’t claim Princess and the Frog reaches such giddy heights, I think its consistency makes it entertaining as a whole film, rather than as an up-and-down collection of varying-quality set pieces.

Not Disney’s best film, then, but one I believe has come in for an unfair amount of flack. I really liked it.

~~The Princess and the Frog is on Disney Cinemagic today at 5:40pm and tomorrow at 4pm.~~

Tangled (2010)

Posted on October 21, 2011 by badblokebob

Disney’s 50th animated feature is Rapunzel in all but name, for no particularly good reason. It seemed to be met with universal praise on its release last year, critics hailing it as a return to Disney’s previous quality after a run of lacklustre releases, in particular the underwhelming return to 2D in the year before’s The Princess and the Frog.

Well, to get that comparison immediately out of the way, Tangled isn’t as good as The Princess and the Frog in my estimation. I’m not sure why it seems to have been more widely praised — it’s solid and good fun, but I thought Frog had more going for it.

Which isn’t to say Tangled is bad. It’s funny, which is its biggest asset, and exciting at times — as usual, the highly moveable camera of CG animation adds fluidity, speed and excitement to the action sequences, making them one of the high points.

It’s not all good and shiny though. The setting — a comedic-ish fantasy-kingdom world — can come across a bit like lightweight Shrek, lacking the anachronistic postmodern real-world references that made that film zing. Worse, the songs are distinctly unmemorable — I’d forgotten some of them by the time it came to their own reprise. A gang of thugs singing about their dreams is the best thanks to its comedy, but I couldn’t hum or sing any of it for you now. I especially lament the lack of a decent villain’s song, a number I usually particularly enjoy. It has one, I suppose, but it’s one of the weakest examples I’ve ever heard.

Tangled isn’t bad by any measure, but I don’t feel it should be the praise-magnet it became. There are certainly better Disney musicals — it can’t hold a candle to those; and there are better funny fairytales too — but at least it holds up as a solid addition to that sub-genre.

The UK TV premiere of Tangled is on Disney Cinemagic this Sunday, 23rd October, at 5pm and 9pm.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides [3D] (2011)

Posted on September 9, 2011 by badblokebob

2011 #61
Rob Marshall | 137 mins | cinema | 12A / PG-13

No one had high hopes for Pirates of the Caribbean when it set sail for the big screen (sorry) in 2003. It was based on a Disney theme park ride, for chrissake! But no, as it turned out: a witty and exciting screenplay, some properly photo-real CG from ILM, and an immediately-iconic Oscar-nominated performance from Johnny Depp were some of the ingredients that helped it become an instant blockbuster classic.

And then, drunk on success, they churned out two disappointing, overblown sequels. Picking up on elements left vaguely dangling from the first film, the filmmakers somehow fashioned it to look like a trilogy (not that the first film doesn’t work absolutely fine by itself), and given the lacklustre critical reception and conclusive nature of the story, I think everyone assumed that would be that.

But no. Not when you’re Disney and have a franchise capable of grossing over $1 billion per film. And so here we get Pirates 4, with high hopes: they seemed aware the two-part-ish sequels hadn’t gone down so well, promising a standalone adventure that returned to the quality of the first film; it’s adapted in part from a largely unknown but beloved by those that do novel (which also inspired the Monkey Island games, which in turn contributed a lot to Pirates 1 — it’s all very incestuous); plus Disney insisting on cuts for a tighter budget suggested there’d be less of the sequels’ excesses.

It still cost $250m, mind, and the fact that’s what’s considered a cutback arguably shows.

Things start really well. The opening sequences in London are a hoot, Depp bringing some of the joy back to the character of Jack Sparrow that went awry during the last two films. We also get to see why he is actually a great hero, something occasionally lost under the drunken swaggering — look at his well-plotted escape from the King’s court, which initially looks like pure lunacy but turns out to be all clever set-up, for instance. The carriage chase through London streets that follows is good fun too, undoubtedly the film’s high point.

It’s pretty much downhill from there though. The film burns through ideas and plot points at a rate of knots. While I’m all for not stretching ideas thin — something that can happen too often in blockbuster movies these days — here the opposite is true, with not enough time devoted to explaining things, to characterisation, to making us give a damn about what’s going on or why it’s going on. They seem to think we’ll care about Sparrow, Barbossa and Kevin McNally’s character just because they were in the three previous films… and, in fairness, we do, to a point (well, the first two); but they also seem to think this will transfer to the new cast, and it doesn’t.

The love story between a missionary and a mermaid barely factors. Word was this pair would be the series’ new Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, but whereas Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner were central to the plot of all the previous films (appearing before even Captain Jack in the first, if I recall), these two turn up late in the day and never have a chance to go anywhere. There’s also a surfeit of villains, meaning they either barely appear (the Spanish) or aren’t given close to enough screen time (Ian McShane’s Blackbeard). Every introduction is rushed, every subplot underdeveloped, every ending unsatisfactory. There’s too much, even for a movie that still runs over two hours.

There’s potential here, as there has been for all the Pirates films that followed in the wake of the first one, but as the quality continues to slip it’s becoming easy to believe that screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio hit a fluke with the quality of the first film and haven’t been able to meet it again since. And I would say most of the fault lies with the screenplay, because there’s little fundamentally wrong with the rest of it.

Except the 3D, maybe. I have no idea if this was a post-conversion or shot for real, but it doesn’t matter — it’s dull. Either things are too dark to matter, or it just doesn’t pop in the way you’d like. A couple of sweeping scenery shots aside, it offers no benefit. 3D is a gimmick and all about spectacle — I believe anyone who thinks it’s a serious filmmaking tool for the future is deluding themselves, at least until someone can prove otherwise (much-heralded work like Avatar certainly hasn’t) — but it’s a gimmick On Stranger Tides doesn’t engage with, in the process showing it lacks spectacle. And considering dark scenes obviously don’t work well in the format, I dread to think what Ridley Scott’s Prometheus will look like. (I probably won’t see it ’til 2D Blu-ray anyway, so that might be a moot point.)

I’m certain some will think my score for On Stranger Tides is generous, but despite all the flaws it still has its moments. I just wish that instead of churning Pirates films out ASAP they’d put more effort into developing the screenplay. Perhaps hiring new writers would help. But with a fifth and possibly sixth film on the horizon, and no significant change of scribe imminent, any such hopes are already dashed. And as this poorly-reviewed effort still grossed a phenomenal amount (third highest of the year; eighth of all time), Disney will still get their money and keep pumping them out. The whole situation is not so much yo-ho, more ho-hum.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is out on DVD, Blu-ray and 3D Blu-ray in the UK from Monday, 12th September, and in the US from 18th October. Why can’t the Marvel releases from this summer be that way round, hm?

The UK TV premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is on BBC One tonight, 29th December 2013, at 8pm.

Bolt (2008)

Posted on March 25, 2011 by badblokebob

2011 #11
Byron Howard & Chris Williams | 96 mins | Blu-ray | PG / PG

Bolt is the 48th film in Disney’s animated canon (whatever the official name for that is these days), from their CG-only era that filled most of the ’00s. It’s a period already remembered as When Disney Lost Its Way, after the second (or is it third? I forget) ‘golden era’ of the early ’90s; the time that produced flops like Treasure Planet, Home on the Range and Meet the Robinsons. Things are looking up — it’s been followed by The Princess and the Frog, where a return to 2D animation distinctly marked a more widespread change of direction, and the praised Tangled — but it may be Bolt that comes to be seen as the true turning point, because it’s actually rather good.

Let’s get the worst bit out of the way first: thankfully, Miley Cyrus’ part is quite small. She’s adequate, but one suspects she got roped in because a) Disney were already trying to find a way to continue making money out of her post-Hannah Montana, and b) she provided a surefire-selling song for the end credits. Chloë Moretz reportedly recorded all of Penny’s dialogue before Cyrus was brought in; one can’t help but feel that, age-wise (and probably acting-ability-wise too), she would’ve been a better fit for the character.

But it’s not about Penny, it’s about Bolt, and he is excellently realised. Bolt, if you don’t know, is a dog, and the animators have captured dogs’ behaviour perfectly. It’s not just the obvious things, as seen during the sequence where Mittens the cat trains him to be a ‘regular dog’, but all the little mannerisms throughout. The animals are anthropomorphised, of course, but they’re not just animal-shaped-humans; they’re what these animals would be like if they could talk. Crossed with humans, anyway.

Also noteworthy are the action sequences. Far from being perfunctory attempts at liveliness, these are properly exciting, making full use of 3D CGI to create exciting and dynamic sequences. I’m not just talking about the couple we get from the TV-series-within-the-film either, but also the ‘real world’ ones as Bolt, Mittens and Rhino jump onto trains, out of moving vans, escape from a pound, etc. Of course, the TV-series-within-the-film is completely implausible — like you could film a TV show with massive action sequences in such a way that you only ever do a single take, never mind achieve all those effects on a TV budget. But then this is a film where a talking dog, cat and hamster work together to travel from New York to Hollywood entirely of their own volition — I think it’s safe to say no one’s aiming for documentary levels of realism.

And it’s funny too, especially once Rhino the hamster turns up. It’s not the greatest comedy ever made (and the level of praise attributed to Rhino in some quarters may have taken it too far), but it’s genial enough and elicited a few decent laughs. It even had me getting a little emotional at the end, which isn’t something I ever expected to feel about a film starring Miley Cyrus and a dog made out of polygons.

Despite being computer-generated and 3D, there are attempts to add a painterly look to the film — brushstrokes, pastel colours, that kind of thing. It works rather well when seen in isolation in backgrounds, some of the big wide shots, etc; but the obviously-CG main elements jar against it, the painterly style not extending to the characters or main environments fully enough for it to gel. Especially when the apparently-flat paint-styled backgrounds begin to move in three dimensions (for instance, as the camera pushes into scenery, so that trees/buildings move relative to road/field/hills/streets), it becomes a little weird. An interesting experiment, but not a wholly successful one I think. Something like Ratatouille’s attempt at softening CG animation’s usual hard crispness was more effective.

It would be easy to dismiss Bolt as part of Disney’s CG folly, especially as it stars Miley Cyrus and is immediately followed by their return to 2D animation, but I think that would be a mistake. It’s a fast-paced and fun adventure, with accurately-captured animals meaning it’s especially likely to appeal to dog lovers. Disney’s next golden era just might begin here.

Toy Story 3 (2010)

Posted on December 26, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #114
Lee Unkrich | 103 mins | Blu-ray | U / G

Didn’t get Toy Story 3 for Christmas? Pick it up in the sales, then, because it’s bloody good.

Look:

Much was written about Toy Story 3 when it was released this summer, so I’m not sure how much I have to add, but here we go. It’s no surprise either — that’s what happens when a preeminent and popular studio releases a sequel to a beloved and acclaimed film franchise 11 years after the last instalment. High expectations abounded. For once, they weren’t necessarily unrealistic: if anyone could pull off such a feat, it’s Pixar.

It was somewhat amazing when Toy Story 2 equalled — some (including me) would say bettered — the first film. We may be more used to quality sequels these days but, as major franchises like The Matrix and Pirates of the Caribbean readily prove, they’re still far from guaranteed. To even try again with a threequel seems madness (no one’s told Chris Nolan this either, it seems). But they tried, and they succeeded: Toy Story 3 is at least the equal of the first two, if not once again slightly better — something that is, as far as my memory can muster, unheard of.

Individual adjectives serve admirably: it’s hilarious, emotional, exciting, scary; a great comedy, a great action/adventure. And Ken’s fashion show sequence is worth the price of admission all by itself. It’s kid-friendly, of course, but it’s not just for kids — it’s for young adults, who’ve grown up with these films and these characters and, in a way, are letting them go along with Andy; and for adults, who may have left childish things behind but can hopefully still appreciate the thematic sentiment.

Darker sequences support this interpretation, I think — the furnace climax, for instance, which carries a palpable sense, even to a savvy adult viewer, of “will they really do that?” doom. With the intention being that this is the series’ closing instalment — and with Andy grown up and leaving so that, however things end for the toys, this is The End for viewers — there are times when one wonders just how dark Pixar may be willing to push it. The potential that some or all of the toys may be lost along the way is a genuine fear, a move of blue-moon rarity for modern Children’s Films. This is in addition to the usual Pixar style of including jokes and references to skim over the kids’ heads.

I suppose TS3 may not be quite as effective if the first two films weren’t part of your childhood. I feel they were on the edge of mine — I was certainly too old to actually have any of the toys, for instance; I imagine anyone who had their own Buzz or Woody will feel even more emotional seeing them go through what they do here. Similarly, it pays to be aware of events and jokes in the preceding films. You don’t need to know intricate plot details, but there are plenty of pleasing references to catchphrases and moments.

Is Toy Story 3 faultless? Probably not. But I can’t think of any right now. Sublime.

Toy Story 3 placed 2nd on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2010, which can be read in full here.

The Special Edition of Beauty and the Beast (1991/2002)

Posted on December 7, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #115a
Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise | 92 mins | Blu-ray | U / G

Do you need me to tell you how great Beauty and the Beast is? I imagine not. If you’ve seen it, you’ll know. If you haven’t, you really should, and then you’ll know.

There’s a reason this managed to become the first animated film ever to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. It’s impossible to fault in any significant way. The design and animation are beautiful (in particular the stained-glass opening), the voice acting spot-on, the score exquisite, the story fast-paced and enthralling, there’s even a variety of moral messages for the kids to learn — though, to be honest, some adults could do with learning them too. It’s hilariously funny, remarkably exciting, surprisingly scary, relentlessly romantic… By forefronting the love story it may not be as obviously boy-friendly as Aladdin or The Lion King, but between Gaston, the wolves, Lumiere, Chip, and the action-packed finale, there’s plenty for less romantically-inclined little’uns to enjoy.

As a musical, it’s equally faultless. Every song is a gold-standard Disney tune — Belle (the opening song), Be Our Guest, Gaston, The Mob Song (as the villagers set off to kill the Beast), and of course Beauty and the Beast itself. There are few musicals of any calibre where I feel able to say there’s not a single dull or mediocre song to be found, but Beauty and the Beast is certainly one of them. Every number bursts with memorable tunes, witty rhymes, genuine emotion — even the Soppy Girly Song is a good one! Perhaps the only exception in this Special Edition’s sole extension, a previously-deleted song called Human Again. It’s not a bad song — not at all — but it’s a notch below the others. (There are a few more changes to the film than just adding the song, listed here.)

You may have heard that a 3D version now exists too, released in some territories earlier this year with a US cinema and Blu-ray 3D release scheduled for 2011. Aside from the usual issues around post-production 3Disation, how well can a 2D-animated film convert to the format? Surely it looks even more like flat layers stacked on top of each other than other fake-3D efforts? I’m curious, though probably not enough to seek it out if it makes it as far as UK cinemas.

Some of “Disney’s Animated Classics” (do they still call them that? I don’t know) stretch the definition to its breaking point — indeed, some of them do break it. But Beauty and the Beast more than lives up to the name. In fact, it could easily drop the “Disney’s”. And the “Animated”. It’s a pure Classics. Erm, Classic.

Hercules’ New Groove

Posted on November 6, 2010 by badblokebob

Hercules and The Emperor’s New Groove are connected by two things: firstly, they’re among the first Disney films I didn’t see because I’d Grown Up; secondly, I’m not sure I’d’ve wanted to see them anyway because I always thought they looked rubbish.

In truth, I think the second factor was more powerful than the first, because I’ve always liked the Disneys I liked — I don’t actually remember a time when I felt I’d grown out of them, just a time when I didn’t watch them.

Finally seeing this pair now, I find that my expectations were surprisingly flouted in one case, and sadly vindicated in another. But you’ll have to read on to see which is which…

2010 #99
Hercules

“It suffers from songs that are at best unmemorable and at worst irritating. The gospel-styled Greek Chorus sing dreadful dialogue, while Hercule’s big song is like a wimpy first draft of Mulan’s… [The] love interest gets a passable song, not that I can remember it now… [but] it looks great in HD.” – Read more…

2010 #102
The Emperor’s New Groove

“There are some good bits like the sequence at the diner, or a lot of Kronk’s stuff… The villains are a delight. It’s hard to hate them when they’re somewhat wronged and more pleasant to spend time with than the hero… [and it] again looked nice and crisp in HD.” – Read more…

When I said “you’ll have to read on to see”, I meant the full reviews. These quotes may be (deliberately) misleading…

Hercules (1997)

Posted on November 5, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #99
Ron Clements & John Musker | 89 mins | TV (HD) | U / G

Hercules is the first post-me Disney; the point where, for whatever reason, I stopped watching their output. But, of course, Disneys — good Disneys, at any rate — are suited to every age group.

To not do myself too much of a disservice, I remember at the time being very unimpressed with how Hercules looked in trailers. I felt the animation looked far too Modern — all those sharp lines and chunky styles — ugh. Now, in the wake of so many computer-based animated efforts (be it 3D or Flash-based), it looks positively hand-drawn and traditional. And it looks great in HD.

Directors Clements and Musker also helmed Basil the Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Treasure Planet and The Princess and the Frog — an extraordinary run with few duds (says he who hasn’t seen the last two, I hasten to point out), which is unmatched in at least the modern Disney era (unless you start counting Pixar). Hercules isn’t their best effort, but it stands up pretty well.

Firstly, there’s a good cast: Rip Torn’s Zeus is fun, Danny DeVito’s hero-trainer Phil a decent version of a Disney archetype, James Woods’ Hades a solid villain. Even the villain’s comedy sidekicks, who by all rights should be intensely irritating, are entertaining. Pegasus, meanwhile, is worthy of Disney’s long tradition of animal-sidekicks-with-no-dialogue-who-can-still-convey-their-thoughts-and-feelings-perfectly (I feel this tradition needs a snappier name.) Love interest Meg, meanwhile, starts out intensely irritating but is gradually redeemed. Good work, I say to the film’s twenty credited writers.

In spite of that — and, indeed, in spite of what one might expect — the tale is told with surprising faithfulness. There’s still a healthy dose of anachronistic content to liven up the humour though. In fact, the sequences with Hercules’ adoring fans and merchandising empire ring even more true in this Twilight-obsessed world than they did 13 years ago. It’s one of the scarier Disneys, I think — not because it brings Twilight to mind (though I appreciate that’s enough to send a shiver down anyone’s spine), but because of all the giant monsters and Hell-ish stuff. But maybe I’m just being over-sensitive.

Where the quality falls down slightly is the music. It suffers from songs that are at best unmemorable and at worst irritating. The gospel-styled Greek Chorus grew on me, but started out singing dreadful dialogue — I know songs don’t have to rhyme, but really, theirs should have — while Hercule’s big song is like a wimpy first draft of Mulan’s I’ll Make a Man Out of You (though even mentioning it in the same sentence as that number makes it sound better than it is). Only love interest Meg gets a passable song, not that I could remember it within hours of watching the film. Maybe it’s not all that bad really, but when early-’90s Disneys could produce several unforgettable tunes per film, it feels like a weak album from a band you usually enjoy.

Hercules isn’t up there with Disney’s best late ’80s/early ’90s output. I’m certain this isn’t just nostalgia talking — it’s not just my childhood memories that make the likes of Aladdin, The Lion King or Beauty and the Beast superior — but it was better than I expected and, though flawed, has a lot to commend it too.

The Emperor’s New Groove (2000)

Posted on November 5, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #102
Mark Dindal | 75 mins | TV (HD) | U / G

Disney’s 40th (canonical) animated film had a very troubled production, which, from what I can tell, turned it from a derivative riff on The Prince and the Pauper into this load of tosh.

The ‘hero’ — the titular emperor, Kuzco — is thoroughly irritating, and we have to suffer him in voiceover narration as well as on screen. OK, the film’s aware he’s irritating, that’s the point, and he has a Journey that leads him to become Good and Nice and all that moral palaver; but so does, say, the Beast, but that film doesn’t try to force him on us as the central identifiable character. New Groove has a Belle-equivalent pre-installed — moral family-man villager Pacha, the ‘buddy’ in this ‘buddy movie’ — and perhaps if the story had followed him it would have more success in the likability stakes.

The villains, by comparison, are a delight. The problem is, while we ‘love to hate’ the likes of Scar or Gaston, here we just ‘like’ scientific ex-advisor Yzma and her nice-but-dim henchman Kronk. It’s hard to hate them when they’re somewhat wronged and more pleasant to spend time with than the supposed hero. It’s not that I wanted them to succeed in killing Kuzco, more that I didn’t care whether they did or not.

There’s one song, and it’s not particularly good. Not that a Disney film has to be a musical but, well, most are, and it’s not as if the rest of the film is strong enough to support their absence. Much like Hercules, I’d always perceived this to have a nasty squared-off animation style. In reality it doesn’t suffer from that too much, and again looked nice and crisp in HD. I usually ignore image quality when it comes to reviews — not that I don’t care, but in these reviews I’m aiming to look at the content of the film rather than the particular copy I watched — but HD has such noticeable benefits for animation (when done well).

There are some good bits tucked away — like the sequence at the diner, or a lot of Kronk’s stuff (it’s easy to see why he was chosen to lead the straight-to-DVD sequel), or a good chunk of the climax — but there’s not enough to make up for the rest.

Somehow, it holds a decent score on both viewer-rated IMDb and critic-rated Rotten Tomatoes. This surprised me for two reasons: one, I thought it had gone down badly; and two, it deserved to go down badly. No pleasant surprises here — The Emperor’s New Groove is as weak and irritating as the title.

The Emperor’s New Groove featured on my list of The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2010, which can be read in full here.

Mulan (1998)

Posted on July 28, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #64
Tony Bancroft & Barry Cook | 84 mins | TV | U / G

I realised recently that I haven’t seen an animated Disney film produced after The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which I saw on rented video thinking I was probably getting too old for the Mouse House’s output. Now I’ve grown up, of course, I know you’re never too old for a good Disney. As Mulan seems to be one of their last to gather significant praise before they slipped into their ’00s rut, it seemed a good place to begin catching up on what I’d missed.

It’s easy to see what critics and/or audiences liked about Mulan. There’s a few good, catchy songs — though sadly no villain’s song, which is usually one of the highlights — and some lovely animation — though I feel it’s been rather outshone by the similarly-styled Kung Fu Panda in this regard. There are decent action sequences too, fast-paced and fluidly animated, which helps make what could’ve been a Girly Film into something palatable to both genders (I remember being distinctly unimpressed with Pocahontas when forced to see it in the cinema).

The other thing that stands out about Mulan, particularly now, is how very Americanised it is. That’s nothing new for Disney, of course, but it feels a little odd these days. When we’re so used to increased attempts at appropriate cultural reverence from Hollywood movies, it’s almost uncomfortable to hear such American accents from clearly Chinese characters. (It’s this kind of thing that has caused uproar for The Last Airbender in the US (quite aside from it supposedly being a load of cobblers). How times change.) Eddie Murphy’s Mushu (who now comes across a little like a proto-Donkey) is particularly incongruous in this regard. I suppose it’s no worse than, say, Aladdin, or The Jungle Book, or all the Euro-set films.

With a ‘princess’ overcoming her assigned place, a pair of cute/humorous animal sidekicks, a princely husband-to-be, and a vicious villain in need of defeating, the tale of Mulan has certainly been adapted into the Disney mould. It may not be their best effort, but it’s still a strong one.

Mulan is on Channel 5 today, Sunday 4th May 2014, at 5pm.

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