Mulan Review

Years from now, I hope to look back on the varied life I’m attempting to have. I’ll look back fondly on the memories I’ve captured and created for myself. The films I’ve watched and loved, albums I’ve engaged with and books that have kept me hooked. Thousands upon thousands of different pieces of art that I’ll have collected in my vodka fuelled mind. I can tell you, right now, that Mulan will never hold such a place in my memory. In fact, the reason for this strangely open introduction is that I’ve forgotten everything about this miserable, Disney trash that the nostalgic many have clung to for most of their adult lives.

Get over yourselves, this formulaic Disney shlock has herded clattering geese and children that don’t know any better into a pen of misery. That may be a tad harsh for a film catering to children, but there is truly no appeal to Mulan. Now I’m no defender of Disney or their animated classics, I don’t think it’d be possible for me to begin to describe how little I care for their films, but I know they’re certainly capable of making some decent films.

Name the villain from Mulan. No, seriously, try. I can’t remember a Disney villain being so bland, beige and boring all in one humiliating go. With Disney, the lack of consistent villainy is invariably due to the length of their feature films. Mulan suffers near enough the same problems as Dumbo, but Mulan provides us with an extra fifteen or so minutes to try and expand upon its often flatlining characters. Our titular hero and her band of friends (a dragon voiced by Eddie Murphy, a horse and a beetle or something) disguise themselves and joining the military in the fight against the Huns.

Aside from Disney’s patented animation style, the story and characters are particularly bland and redundant. Showcasing a strong lead character and then shoehorning them into a romantic subplot in that ever expected, traditional fashion doesn’t work all that well if the characters are opportunistically bland. What’s even worse is the musical numbers sprinkled throughout. The generic scribblings of a plucky, optimistic song, in this case being unusually forgettable by the Disney standard. I’m sort of glad they’ve been etched from my mind though; the babbling screams of animated Disney music ventures are about as appealing to me as whatever music is in the charts currently.

I’m still rather certain that I’ll fall upon a Disney film that caters to my relatively low standards, but Mulan just isn’t that. A very uninspired story that doesn’t pry into the creative villains we’ve come to expect from their animated products. Boring characters, flat humour, but animated well enough to not make it a completely redundant time.