Disney+ was released in the UK and many European countries two days ago. To celebrate this, we thought we would review one of the Disney+ originals: the live-action version of Lady and the Tramp.
The original Lady and the Tramp was released in 1955 and is a favourite of a lot of Disney fans. The movie is mostly known for its iconic spaghetti dinner scene. Disney has been making a lot of live action remakes of their animated movies recently, so it was just a matter of time that we would see our favourite dog couple committed to film history in live action. The film was released on Disney+ in 2019 as one of their first original movies.
But how did it turn out? The first thing to note is that the movie is 27 minutes longer than the original. This ended up being a good decision, because the movie was able to dive a bit deeper in the relationships between the protagonists, which is something that the original didn’t do much. It gave new characters some screen time and extended the screen time of known characters like Jim, Darling or the Dog Catcher. However…
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Lady And The Tramp Proves That More Isn’t Always Better
The voice cast does a good job – especially Tessa Thompson, who voices Lady, and Justin Theroux, who voices Tramp. Tessa Thompson manages to make you feel like Lady is way more strong and fearless than in the original, which also was used in the story, making her the bonafide star of this movie.
Thomas Mann and Kiersey Clemons delivered solid performances as Jim and Darling, but they can’t reach the charm that the characters had in the original.
The story in its structure is the same. Fans will see all the similarities to the original. The script added some differences, which don’t have any impact on the story but give this movie a bit of freshness, depending on whether you like the changes. For example Lady’s friend Jock is male in the original, but female in the remake.
The technical aspects of this movie are solid, but there is nothing that really stands out. The camera uses the standard angles and looks. The lighting is often a little dark, because a lot of the movie takes place at night. The sound is serviceable, but overall the score and music resembles the original.
The VFX are the interesting part, as the movie switches a lot between the real dog and VFX dogs, and it’s often really obvious when it does that. It’s also obvious that the budget was way lower than the live action remakes that were released in theatres. But the VFX are in no way bad, and there is no scene which looks distractingly weird or bad in any way.
The problem that this movie has is the same one that many critics also had with another of Disney’s live action remakes, The Lion King (2019): the characters can’t express emotions. The charm that the original movie had couldn’t be recreated in any way, because the animal characters always looks so static and emotionless. That really took a lot of the emotional weight of this movie, because you don’t buy it.
Overall, this movie has it’s right to exist and has found a good home at Disney+. For families who want to watch a movie together, it’s the perfect choice. While the original is the objectively better movie, it’s still worth it to give this one a try.
Lady and the Tramp stars Tessa Thompson, Justin Theroux, Thomas Mann and Kiersey Clemons, the runtime is 104 minutes and is rated PG. It’s was released on November 12th on Disney+ in the US.
What do you guys think? Did you watch Lady and the Tramp? Are you planning to watch it? Let’s discuss everything in the comments down below.
