Lady and the Tramp
Everything about Lady and the Tramp screams direct-to-DVD: from its overall impact and quality to its fumbled release. Every aspect is both underwhelming and mediocre. The overall cheery and sickly intent powers through in its usual Disney fashion and while it is not a problematic venture, it is a shallow and hollow entity.
Lady and the Tramp, directed by Charlie Bean, is the first in a proposed whole new line of sizable properties made exclusively on the streaming service of Dinsey+. Bean's film is a carbon copy remake of the nineteen fifty-five film of the same name but boasts a considerable distinctive upgrade in the special effects department, as well as the voicing talents of Tessa Thompson and Justin Theroux as the titular characters.
The voicing talents are undoubtedly the most substantial factor of this feature. Theroux puts forward a splendid charismatic rendition that has flavour and a richness to it. Thompson equally puts forward a charismatic and elegant persona that the film hinges on in terms of emotional value. Nevertheless, aside from those two pivotal elements, the film never takes the next step. One aspect is the flat cinematography utilised by Enrique Chediak that has zero flair or visual prowess. The film continually looks stagnant and bland, and the edit boasts nothing of any particular style or interest.
Thomas Mann and Kiersey Clemons pop up here and there as the owners of Lady but they have little depth or character to add to the overall events. Not being necessarily the films centre stage one can almost understand the lack of material given to the pair, but that being said the pair’s interracial relationship in New Orleans in the early part of the 20th century is a plot point completely missed and, if anything, quite patronising to the actual life of what this couple would have experienced. Of course, it is a Disney property but to showcase such an element and paint over it as an easy life lived is to patronise the history of what these type of characters went through.
Bean's film, while taking the crowning glory of the singular launch blockbuster of Dinsey+, will quite comfortably be forgotten in the weeks to come. A dull and ultra-ordinarily flat venture that can not manage to convict on a sequence of substantial entertainment value throughout its one-hundred-minute running time.
The Lady and the Tramp is released exclusively on Disney+ from November 12th.
