No Sarge

The movie was okay but I definitely was expecting much more when watching the film. First, I will be skipping the controversial topic of whether or not the decision to omit certain characters or how well the movie followed the source material. These ideas are very subjective and I tried to watch this without any bias and respect the productions decisions to make these changes. However, I do feel that this film had so much wasted potential. The cast was amazing and I guess the graphics were too. However, this did not integrate well with the actual movie as literally the whole cast, apart from Mulan, did no talking. I say waste as there were just a few decisions that were made in terms of actions and actual battle scenes that irked me. Like that scene were she is just sitting in the middle of the battle and all her friends are being blasted and then like none of the enemies decide to shoot her despite all of them having bows and just sitting around looking. And how is that guy being tossed around in the avalanche when all you need is a horse and your fine? I let it past because it was movie but still, if I can point it out, why can't the professionals? Though I'm not hating on any of the producers and definitely understand the movie making is a very strenuous process. Also, the romance was also very rushed and it did feel like the characters were just forced into that position just to abide with the original movie. Like another reviewer I actually kind of felt the Witch was a more appropriate love interest. Speaking about the Witch, to be honest I did welcome the new addition of characters. To be honest most of them were just a name change and I barely noticed the changes. The only problem I had with the addition of new characters was that it ment that everything really complex. I think it was because the movie had to go explain what the heck the Witch's deal was, though I did like her the most and her death was super disappointing (on another tangent, come on My Bad Guy you saw the Witch save Mulan why didn't you just use 2 arrows and just not fight her), the need to explain all these different plot lines and scenes really contributed to how rushed all the development was. For instance, the training montage was not great and it was like we had to watch through cut versions of the scenes from the old Mulan. Because of this there was no time for us to see any character development and so there was no satisfaction seeing the protagonist overcome her challenges. I reckon it would have been a better movie also if they had decided to stick to whether they were going to limit the influence of the 1998 Mulan or go with a new plot from an old premise. It was due to this this, the film had such a bad reaction from people watching to experience nostalgia and the people who were just there to watch a good movie. I'm all for the adaptations, though this is my first one, but I feel like next time if you're going to remove key characters from the old animation, don't tease the audience by giving us bad substitutes and give us the real thing. Or if you go on a route to completely change the movie then do it and don't try to force it to be what it isn't because this movie really could have been good. Like come on, what did the Phoenix even do apart from just flying around and directing her like once. Sure you could argue it gave her hope but what was the point of the sword? Overall, the movie was pretty average, some might say a little below average, but I do think it was because of a mix of disappointment and rushed development.