Mulan fails as action spectacle and lazily cribs from the vast cinematic legacy it so loosely approximates. After such massive financial successes as Beauty and the Beast and especially last year’s The Lion King, it was of course highly unlikely that Disney would stop mining their…
The One and Only Ivan is an intentionally inclusive, surprisingly unbusy animated offering from Disney. Over the past few weeks, Disney has gone on a bit of a promotional blitz for their latest animal-centric feature, The One and Only Ivan, with ads built around a…
Beyonce’s instincts for visual panache are undermined by the studio’s clear attempt to expropriate and Disneyfy Black is King. As an act of synergy, the Beyonce-directed Disney+ release Black is King feels natural, perhaps even inevitable. At this point, Beyonce has successfully built herself…
Hamilton barely qualifies as a film, losing much of what makes it a stage success in translation, and its historical revisionism feels much murkier in 2020 America. In New York, during the 19th century, there was Broadway, which catered to New York’s more affluent…
The last time J.J. Abrams came near a Star Wars movie it was to kickstart a new trilogy with The Force Awakens, which was both celebrated as a return to cosmetic and structural form after George Lucas’ truly inspired but often bizarre prequel series.…
At this point, the Disney live action remake is a fact of life, a part of the current moviegoing landscape as ubiquitous as superheroes and unwanted remakes. So far, their quality has ranged from solid (Cinderella) to unnecessary (The Lion King) to dreadful (Aladdin).…
Say what you want about endless Marvel entries and Star Wars episodes, but no film so perfectly represents fears of a total corporate takeover of the cinema than Disney’s new fully computer-generated remake of 1994’s beloved The Lion King. Faithfully (in many cases, shot-for-shot)…
Another in a long line of action comedies made by people who can’t shoot action, Michael Dowse’s Stuber is frequently funny and buoyed by two capable leads, but it fails to toy with the tropes in the buddy film sandbox, and is not particularly…
Ready for another go-round with your vaguely queasy adult feelings about the inner lives of toys? Disney and Pixar are here to oblige. Toy Story 4 does the usual advertised job of making grown-up parents all nostalgic and weepy while delivering a stealth dose…
When the Marvel Cinematic Universe started to come together in the late 2000s and early 2010s, it was not only fashionable but easy to pick these superhero films apart — not merely for the sameness of their self-serious origin stories nor the clumsiness of…
