tek's rating: ¼

Lady and the Tramp (PG), on Disney+
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This is a 2019 live-action remake of the 1955 animated film of the same name. I don't really feel like explaining much of the plot, because it's mostly the same overall story as the original, but with some details added or changed. On the whole I'd say I liked it less than the original, though that may just be because it seemed sort of unnecessary, to me. It's really not a bad movie, and I liked it a bit more than I expected to. Plus the cats aren't Siamese and sing a totally different song than in the original, so it's good to avoid the racism. I do want to say that the internet informs me real dogs were used in the movie, which I thought were CGI. I mean, I thought they looked almost realistic, but not quite. I think some CGI was used, but I'm not sure how much or in what way.

Anyway, as you probably know, it's about a dog named Lady (voiced by Tessa Thompson), who meets a stray dog called Tramp (among other names). Lady also has a couple of dog friends named Trusty (Sam Elliott) and Jock (in this movie, unlike the original, Jock is a female, her name being short for Jacqueline). And Tramp has a couple of dog friends named Peg (Janelle Monáe) and Bull. Lady's owners have a baby named Lulu, at which point they start paying less attention to Lady, just as Tramp predicted. And at one point they go away for a few days, leaving Aunt Sarah (Yvette Nicole Brown) to look after Lady. As in the original, Sarah's cats make a lot of trouble, for which Lady gets blamed. Meanwhile, there's a dog catcher (Adrian Martinez, whom I know from Stumptown) who's constantly trying to catch Tramp. And... yeah, I guess that's all I want to say. You could check my review of the original for more details, or check one of the links I've provided above, if you're interested.


family web films index

live-action re-imaginings of animated (or partly animated) Disney movies
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101 Dalmatians (1996) * Maleficent (2014) * Cinderella (2015) * Pete's Dragon (2016) * The Jungle Book (2016) *
Beauty and the Beast (2017) * Dumbo (2019) * Aladdin (2019) * Lady & the Tramp (2019) * Mulan (2020) * Cruella (2021) *
Pinocchio (2022) * Peter Pan & Wendy (2023) * The Little Mermaid (2023)
In Development: Snow White * Moana * Lilo & Stitch * et al.

I have a tendency to think of this trend as having started with "Maleficent," though I didn't think of it as a "thing" until "Cinderella" came out, and other re-imaginings had been announced. But then I started thinking I should include Alice in Wonderland (2010) as the start of the modern trend (but later decided against considering that part of the trend at all, since it's more of a sequel than a reimagining), as well as remembering that there were other such movies even before that. (I thought I might include 1994's "The Jungle Book", but later decided maybe not.) But particularly since "Cinderella," there have been increasing numbers of old animated Disney movies being remade or completely re-imagined, in live-action. There will be some things I don't include as part of this trend, like TV movies (such as "Geppetto"). And no straight-up modern sequels to old movies, even if they really feel to me like part of this trend (such as "Mary Poppins Returns"). Also no remakes of movies that were live-action to begin with (such as "That Darn Cat", "The Parent Trap", "Freaky Friday", etc.) And obviously no animated remakes of films (which I consider "The Lion King" to be), whether the original was animated or live-action. And no live-action re-imaginings of old Disney movies by other studios (such as "Snow White and the Huntsman" or "Mirror Mirror"). Also I won't bother listing sequels to re-imaginings, unless they're clearly re-imaginings of old sequels to the original movies; but that's just getting too complicated. As for 2016's "Pete's Dragon," that's complicated, itself, considering the original was mostly live-action, and only the dragon was animated. And of course in the remake, it's still just the dragon that's animated (this time as CGI), but I just can't help feeling like the remake is part of this overall trend. Especially considering that the "Jungle Book" movie that came out the same year uses a lot of CGI, itself.