Lady and the Tramp (2019)
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Lady and the Tramp Movie Review
Lady and the Tramp is a 2019 family musical romance film directed by Charlie Bean and starring Tessa Thompson and Justin Theroux. It’s a passable flick.
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“With me, every day could be an adventure“
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This year saw so many remakes of Disney classics. ‘Aladdin’ and ‘Dumbo’ were both very good as they were changed quite a bit from their original counterparts. ‘The Lion King’ was terrible as it was the same repeated movie. As for this one, it is the first ever Disney+ release, and it’s overall okay for what it is, though ultimately highly forgettable as are all of these remakes at the end of the day.
I found the second act very strong. The romance was so well done, and they changed the most plot points in this particular part of the film with the romantic elements being more mature in quality, and reminding me of good romantic comedies of yesteryear.
But the first act is overly similar, and the third act is simply a mess. The whole movie is incredibly messy for some reason as they changed the order of some plot points, but not in a good way. Instead, it felt put together oddly, and the third act was overly action-oriented, and ultimately very boring. It bored me personally as it lost the little momentum that it got from the second act.
The human characters are fine, though the inclusion of black characters, especially interracial marriage and blacks and whites hanging out at the beginning of the 20th century was honestly so ludicrous that it really annoyed me. This is history erasure, and at the end of the day this type of treatment is much more racist than anything they’ve ever done in the original.
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Speaking of racism, Devon and Rex are the two cats instead of Si and Am in this movie and they are way too similar in design, but overall the song isn’t all that memorable in my opinion. Trusty and Jock themselves are criminally underused, and I found the handling of their characters incredibly frustrating as they aren’t amusing and are very rushed in development.
The same goes for all of the other dogs, but at least Lady is very well developed, and quite likable and sweet whereas Tramp is reliably a lot of fun. I loved that we got his backstory this time around, and both Justin Theroux and Tessa Thompson did a very good job in their roles.
Lady and the Tramp features real dogs with real tongues that are showcased throughout amusingly so. They talk, but at least they are real dogs and I really appreciated that, but then again the enchanting magic of the original is lost as the film felt overly realistic with most of the changes done for the worse, excluding the cruiser which I liked and the zoo sequence being cut off which I also appreciated as it was never my favorite to begin with.
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The film is very well shot and visually quite appealing and romantic at times, but again not magical in any way. The direction and pacing are very weak, and the same goes for the musical numbers which are so weak and short that they felt like an afterthought.
The remake of Lady and the Tramp is a weak, but passable flick. The first act is too similar and the third act is a mess in pace and action, but the second act is very strong as it’s changed a lot and quite romantic. The supporting characters are underdeveloped, but at least the leads are strong. This is not a copy of the original thankfully, but its more realistic approach once again robbed the movie of the original’s enchanting charms.
