Lady and the Tramp 2019
I only saw the original Lady and the Tramp last year, so I didn’t have wait long for the live action remake. This movie was not given a theatrical release and you have to scrounge the extras on YouTube. Instead it featured prominently in the kickoff of the Disney+ service, which is where I saw it. The live action remakes have been a mixed bag for me, but I am happy that this one, like the best of them, adds to the original in some important ways. The original movie was only 76 minutes long and it seemed to me it took a little while for it to get going, with a bunch of cute stuff about Lady at home towards the beginning. At 104 minutes, the remake can take time to develop the characters. And knowing that a lot of the audience will be nostalgic grownups, this isn’t just a movie for kids, adding more romantic banter with the two main characters, more development for Lady’s owners, and more development for their surroundings, supposedly New Orleans around 1910, but actually filmed in Savannah. The dogs are portrayed by real dogs, but are computer animated to talk and do some other things that dogs might not do, like roll a meatball with their nose. Generally the animated and real dog scenes are blended well and it is kind of fun to see talking dogs. Not everything works. The acting can be a little off. Lady sounded a lot like Ellen Degeneres, but is actually Tessa Thompson, who I thought was British based on her performance in Thor: Ragnarok (she is actually from California). I think in many ways this is a better movie than the original, but there are a few rough edges and it is still a remake, so I can only give it a B+
Written: 15 Dec 2019