Lady and the Tramp follows the same plot as the original animated film, with a Cocker Spaniel named Lady, now voiced by Tessa Thompson, who begins to feel neglected when her owners - played by Thomas Mann and Kersey Clemons - have a baby, which takes up most of their time and attention. One day, while a relative, played by Yvette Nicole Brown, is watching Lady, she runs away and is rescued from being attacked by a street dog named the Tramp, voiced by Justin Theroux, whom she met previously. As Lady tries to cope with the changes in her life, she and the Tramp bond and form a connection she never had before.
This is the fourth Disney live-action remake released this year, and the third to focus on animals as the primary characters. Unlike Disney’s previous remakes, this actually holds the distinction of being the one remake that uses real animals to portray the characters, as opposed to the CGI that was used in the other films. And this winds up being a great decision on Disney’s end, as it gives the film a much more natural energy to it, rather than the polished feel of films like Dumbo and The Lion King.
While it does ultimately suffer from some of the same issues that The Lion King had, that being dogs not really being able to have any real facial expressions, they’re still very cute and very enjoyable to watch, and their reactions to certain events are at times very funny and other times very heartbreaking to watch. The voice-work is also really solid, with Tessa Thompson and Justin Theroux bringing a lot of energy to them as the title characters that is charming to watch, qualifying as some of the most effort any performer put into these remakes this year.
While this fixed issues that other remakes had, there are still many problems common with the other remakes that causes this film to suffer. The main issue is that, at a little over an hour and forty minutes, it’s too long. The original film is a tightly paced story at just under eighty minutes. A lot of the drama and emotion is conveyed through visuals, which, as mentioned, is lost a bit due to the use of real dogs that can only do so much in terms of facial expressions.
What this movie instead does is draw certain plot points out, and add certain subplots that really don’t work so well. The film actually does give the Tramp a backstory, which is somewhat intriguing to watch, and is probably one of the more heartbreaking elements of the film. However, beyond that, most things that were added simply don’t work. There are a lot of cheesy, on-the-nose dialogue exchanges that consist of characters arguing back and forth that don’t really feel necessary. Sometimes they’re played for laughs, but they feel more like painful attempts at one-liners than anything that feels natural.
Plus, there’s also a really cringeworthy subplot involving a dogcatcher, played Adrian Martinez, who has a specific vendetta against the Tramp for almost no reason, other than to give this movie a villain. And what made the original film nice to watch was the fact that, while there definitely were antagonistic elements, there wasn’t a flat-out villain. Outside of a relative who disliked dogs in general, most of the conflict was driven from animals being animals, and with this, it loses some of that natural feeling, balancing out what was gained by incorporating real animals into the film.
Lady and the Tramp is a decent live-action remake that fixes some issues that previous live-action remakes had but still suffers from many issues that have overall plagued many of these remakes. It tends to draw things out and create unnecessary conflict, while also making some poor attempts at humor that don’t really stick. However, its talented voice-cast, nice use of real animals, and overall sweet tone make this is an okay, if not particularly memorable, remake.
Recommendation: Proceed With Caution
Comments