Conrad Rodriguez

One thing that made Christian Bale’s Batman movies great was how dark they were compared to Marvel movies. Zack Snyder’s cut kind of takes it back to that point. Still looks too animated and cgi but it’s darker. Now the run time is 4 hours but the plot makes 100x more sense which doesn’t make it feel 4 hours long. Character lines and introductions are filled in better, Steppenwolf now has a more sidekick/redeemer role with the true DC villain (Darkseid) lurking in the shadows like Thanos does for Marvel. What the boxes are and why they magically start awakening gets answered. The movie just makes more sense with the original jumping around a little bit and having superheroes just thrown into a movie together. The run time shouldn’t be an issue if you like and watched movies like Lord of the Rings and enjoyed it.

I couldn’t wait to see this movie but then as the commercials came out, it didn’t look anything like I thought it could have but I love the original and knew this really didn’t take too much work to convert. I was anticipating a great movie; Almost “The Last Samurai” or “Pirates of the Caribbean” style but nowhere close. I felt like they had miles of potential and dragged this through the dirt considering the predecessor didn’t make it too hard since it was pretty much a human based movie to begin with and didn’t involve too many animation changes like “Lion King” and “Beauty and the Beast”. The movie also doesn't truly capture the feelings we once felt with the animated version because of the lack of background music or alternate motives. When watching this movie, they do not give those stepping stones of anticipation to the big battle. They only drive off of the main motive and quickly counter that with a twist at the end of the movie. If you are a fan of whacky over done martial arts movies where they can jump 30ft, run up walls with no ropes, and deflect spears in the air and then karate kick them across the battlefield to kill an enemy then this movie is right up your ally. If you were expecting a great military style setting with realism and an out of this world cultural experience, then save yourself some time and watch something else. Character Development: The character development of Mulan was probably the best part of this movie. You see the struggle she goes through with her powers right off the bat in a similar way Hercules does in the Disney animated movie. She struggles with truly accepting who she actually is due to always being told that a "lady" cannot do those things. Battle Scenes: The battle scenes in this movie are decent for younger kids but rather boring for older teens or adults. No build up to battles or build up of who this villain actually is. Cultural Experience: The cultural experience and scenery is rather poor. When looking at this movie and comparing it to other movies like "Ip Man", "The Last Samurai", "Pirates of the Caribbean"; Mulan falls inferior to the experience of being in China or getting the feeling that you are experiencing a movie based in China. The best references you get to a culture, are the ideals and points that you must respect your elders and that the woman of the house has certain rules to abide.