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Lizardman85
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Cinderella (2015)
Another dull, uninspired. aggressively boring remake
I hold the opinion that every post-Maleficent modern live action remake of animated Disney movies is a soulless attempt at squeezing money from who are to one degree or another nostalgic for the original.
That by itself wouldn't be that bad, every remake wants to make money and by its nature preys on people's nostalgic feelings. However were all of these movies differ is that there seems to be no attempt to make an entertaining movie that can stand on its own.
Even making a shot for shot adaptation would be marginally more entertaining than what this movie delivered.
For context I saw this movie because it was a friend's birthday. Her favorite princess is Cinderella.
I am certain that she does not remember watching this film.
What I got out of watching this movie was that it cemented my belief that Disney is making these movies on the cheap knowing that they'll get an immediate return and hope that people keep falling for the hype enough to make a fat profit. I've never met an actual person, including rabid Disney fans I'm friends with that have ever praised any of these live action remakes except maybe the original Maleficent (not very many good things about the sequel) which I consider as the only one to have substantially made any positive change .
To sum up, take the plot points from the original. Remove half the cast (no talking mice in this one). Remove the song, remove anything remotely interesting. Add in some pointless backstory for the stepmother that told us, the audience, she's a bad lady and there you go. I can't say these are spoilers because every one of these remakes do the same thing.
The Jungle Book (2016)
Even Christopher Walken couldn't save this boring mess
Right off the bat the story is painfully predictable, there's no excuse for it. Even as an adaptation this movies does nothing new with the characters. "Why was this movie made when the original is still good?" Is the stigma that these live action recreations of animated classics have to carry and this movie fumbles right out of the gate (by the way the answer to that hypothetical is that someone wanted money, that's obvious so moving on). Let's break down this movies failings
1. The main kid can't act, his line delivery is painful. the dialogue is also really, really bad and predictable. I caught myself completing dialogue sequences multiple times until I had to stop myself.
2. None of the characters work. the trailer and poster all show Kaa (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) which is the only character that sorta works but her scene is short and pointless in the overall story.
3. Most scenes are pointless in the overall story. the excuse that this is a kids movie is no excuse at all. most scenes do not work with each other or lead in to other scenes.
4. The fact that most "actors" in this "live action" retelling are CG animals is a problem compounded by the fact that Mogli can't act. to be fair the kid probably had to talk to a lot of tennis balls on sticks and that can be hard (see Olsen's performance in Avengers 2 whenever she had to interact with Ultron) but there is a serious disconnect with every character on screen even when the animals talk to each other.
5. Every veteran actor in this sounded like they read their script the morning before they had to go on. The worst example of this is Bill Murray, pay attention to his acting and its clear he didn't want to be there. The only ones that were not phoning it in where Scarlett Johansson and to a lesser degree Christopher Walken and that's probably because he was one of the few singing performances.
6. There is only one complete musical sequence, and its with Christopher Walken. If you're a fan of hairspray you are in for a treat, even if its brief. This movie threw away damn near everything memorable about the original and didn't replace it with anything new and it shows with its lack of musical sections.
7. The new Ending is bad. it has a hamfisted message that I think is supposed to be pro-environment. I say I think because it was not delivered very well. Minor spoiler, Mogli is hounded for most of the movie because he's human and the tiger Shere Khan wants him out of the jungle because he thinks Mogli will bring ruin to the Jungle. In the final confrontation Mogli steals fire from the local human village to fight Shere Khan and he brings ruin to the jungle. Mogli is supposed to learn something from this I think but like I said, not acted or communicated very well.
In brief they stripped everything fun about the story. If you like the original animated Jungle Book I would be surprised if you found anything good in this. if you want a live action Jungle Book movie it's been done better before. if you want to see a live action retelling of a Disney animated classic go watch the only good one that tells a new and interesting story, Maleficent.