Critique: Mulan (2020)

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

Some things steal your attention straight away.

The martial arts choreographer was epic: exciting, strong and graceful flowed into one. The concept of beautiful fighting makes the pacifist in me uncomfortable, yet seeing as martial arts are primarily an art form, this concept isn’t entirely unpleasant.

My favourite character was the witch Xian Lang. her costume and make-up were breath-taking. Her connection with Mulan made for interesting and, at times, gripping viewing. I almost thought Mulan would side with Xian Lang but in the end Xian Lang sided with Mulan, providing the film with urgency.

The original Mulan films were musicals. I love a good musical. (I’ll be honest: I like a bad musical, too.) But having songs wouldn’t have added anything necessary to this version. It would have taken away the atmosphere and diluted the serious tone. (Serious musicals exist but not every kind of seriousness can be accompanied with song.)

In this film, there is an emperor and imperial armies, cities and edicts. Emperors rule over empires and ‘imperial’ is used to describe things in empires. Yet the characters keep on referring to a kingdom. If it was a kingdom, they would have a king and ‘royal’ would be the descriptive term. For such an obvious mistake to be missed is baffling.

 

The animation for the phoenix was simply stunning. The colours were perfect and the way its peacock train flowed in the wind was thought out really well.

This phoenix (fenghuang) represented Mulan’s Ancestors. In the animated version, a dragon filled this role. The change is a clever one, considering phoenixes are female creatures and dragons are male. The phoenix was

But there is a problem: Mulan’s father says phoenixes are reborn in fire. Chinese phoenixes don’t do this. At all. ‘Phoenix’ isn’t really the best translation. If more background research was done, such an embarrassing mistake would not have been made.

 

Mulan and Chen’s relationship was ambiguous. They could easily be friends and they could easily be romantic.

They show affection and sacrifice towards each other, something I view as close friendship. Nothing in the film gives concrete evidence of their romance. So I’m of the former camp.

There is a double expectation of their romance, however. In the animated version, Mulan and Shang (Chen) were romantically involved. Also, on a more general basis, lead characters of opposite genders are often depicted as romantic. So I think it would be more natural to view Mulan and Chen as being partners.

 

Overall, this was an enjoyable film. The scenery was dramatic enough to provide an epic vibe. If more research had been done, silly mistakes would have been avoided and the integrity of the film wouldn’t be in question. Yet I can easily say the positives outweighed the negatives.

 

Critique: The Irregulars (Netflix Series)

Watson (in partnership with Sherlock) is tasked with investigating crimes involving magic. The programme follows Beatrice and co who do the actual work to protect Watson’s high class image. Beatrice’s company are her sister Jessi, friends Billy and Spike, and her lover (Prince) Leopold.

*****SPOILERS*****

 

Billy is entering the ring to fight this massive, brutal man and shows no fear. But then tiny Beatrice stares at Billy and on his face is pure terror. That was hilarious.

 

Like many Beatrice’s, her nickname is ‘Bee’. But Billy calls her ‘Bumble’, as in ‘bumblebee’. It’s so simple but that’s honestly one of the sweetest things I’ve heard.

 

I enjoyed the magic in this show.

Their enemies’ magic is related to their occupation: an ornithologist controls birds, a dentist breathes anaesthetic gas, a taxidermist can change shape… it’s a unique and interesting twist.

Ipssusimi, people like Jessi and the Linin Man, inherit their powers of entering other people’s minds. The antagonists in this show ask the dead for help and they gain powers. The antagonists only have their powers for as long as the rip is open. Is it the same for ipssisimi? Or do they always possess the powers because they inherited them?

It’s clever that the bigger the rip is between the living and the otherworld, the more people that have access to the dead. The more people with powers, the more destruction there is.

 

As always there were problems. Or, at the very least, mild puzzles. The Linin Man being called ‘the Linin Man’ instead of having an actual name, for instance.

Bee and Jess were standing right in front of the tied-up dentist, so why didn’t the dentist just breathe her gas on the sisters?

Leo and Bee’s first kiss didn’t show the passion. That’s the first time I didn’t feel the kiss. The build-up was good and the acting was convincing. Perhaps it was the directing? Their subsequent kisses were far better.

Sherlock speaks all prim and proper yet when she tells Jess to “Leave me alone” he sounds like a common Londoner. It’s the only instance of his accent slipping. At first I thought it was because he wasn’t in a good state of mind but in this programme he’d been in worse states than that and kept his accent.

Leo’s servant tells Bee that he’s the prince. Bee shouts at Leo for lying to her and Leo says he only lied for whatever reason. But he didn’t lie. You all knew he was rich so when he introduced himself as ‘Just Leo’, you all knew he was more. Also at no point did he say, ‘I’m not the prince.’

Sherlock tells Jessi not to swear. So lists some swears, such as ‘tits’, ‘shit’, ‘cock’ and then ‘balls’. Since when is ‘balls’ a swear word? Especially when next to words like ‘tits’ and ‘shit’? Jessi isn’t exactly naive or innocent and I can’t think of anything else to explain this decision away.

In the final confrontation, a nun calls Leo a heathen then attempts to drown him because at least that ay he’ll be baptised. There’s no way the royal family wouldn’t baptise one of their children. Admittedly this nun is possessed by evil and power and delusions but really?

The Linin Man refuses to tell Jessi who opened the rip no matter how much she demands he tell her… But she can just touch his arm, go into his mind and find out. She’s demonstrated this ability plenty of times and has managed it on the Linin Man before, so why waste time rather than going to the portal and closing it before more havoc is caused.

 

This show had a lot of gentle humour. Its vibe is too serious to be constantly hilarious but the writers picked the right times, and right levels, to put humour in.

Leo and Bee have sex (good for them) at the end of one episode. The next episode begins with Leopold asking if ten minutes was normal. Then he convinces himself it was closer to fifteen. Then Bee jokes it was closer to five. (Savage but funny.) Later she asks if Leo wants to spend five minutes with her that night. (Savage but sweet.)

Leo is engaged to Helena and she tells him she won’t spend the rest of her life married to someone who doesn’t know their way around the female form. (Good for you, girl!) Leo gets all defensive (“Yeah, I’ve done it”) and as he leaves, Helena trills at him to practice!

 

There were plenty of positive decisions made.

            Usually when writers want to include an interesting fact, they often have to force it somehow into the plot or rub it in our faces. The writers did none of that. For example, we learn that people in the UK most often take a left turn in a maze, and Europeans/Americans right, because of which side of the road the carriage is driven on.

            Leo is the son of Queen Victoria. We never see the Queen which was an excellent decision. Victoria has such a large and demanding personality that she would need a lot of screen time. However, this would have ruined this programme as she is rather irrelevant.

            Jessi makes the Linin Man simultaneously experience all the fears he’s made others feel at once. Making someone feel all the pain they’ve caused is a rare but powerful move in fantasy and whenever it is used the circumstances surrounding it are always unique. That’s no different here.

            The (dead) mum to Jessi and Bee opened the rip from the other side to be with her daughters. The mum wants the barrier to collapse and Jessi closes it, almost dying in the process. Sherlock goes through the rip so he can be with his lover and abandon his children yet again. Although abandoning his children for a second time seems horrendous, it does fit with his character.

            In the final confrontation, Billy is seriously hurt. The only way Leo could convince the royals to heal Billy was to agree to marry Helena and go to Europe. Leo tells Bee so she knows he didn’t walk out on her, and he asks that Billy never finds out so he never has to suffer with the guilt. The fact that Leo chose his friend over his happiness is touching. Admittedly everyone would be miserable if Billy died and they knew Leo refused to help. But it’s a sacrifice nonetheless.

I’m glad there was only one series of this programme. For another series, another rip would have to be opened and closed and this pattern would go on and on and on. It would be boring, tedious and drag something it out. Quality over quantity any day. The mum did reveal at the very end of the last episode that there were many dimensions. This gives a few possibilities but I don’t think exploring these other dimensions wouldn’t fit with the feel of this show.

Critique: Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles #1) (Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl) 3/3

 

*****SPOILERS*****

Inconsistencies

Inconsistencies in plot and character annoy me as much as mistaken punctuation and grammar. Sometimes it’s only minor but it’s a surprise it slips past the editors.

            The Aunts are looking after baby squirrels. In the same sentence, Ethan calls them vermin but is concerned for their health. The very point of the word ‘vermin’ is something that’s unwanted, unhygienic and to be killed. So wanting them to be healthy strikes me as odd.

            We learn that Ethan’s dead mother would leave her books anywhere and use apple cores and dirty cutlery as book marks. However, Ethan’s mother is made out to be someone who reveres books. Yet she has disgusting, disrespectful behaviour to books? This is an inconsistency with the character.

            In the books conclusion, it’s 10pm. There’s a continuous, contiguous conversations with no pauses. And yet the next time the time’s mentioned, it’s 11:30pm. Not enough happened, not enough was said, to account for these ninety minutes. Then to top this off, after this, Ethan’s phone says it’s 11:25. So I have no idea what’s going on with the time.

 

 

My Culture Shock

I’m British, so encountering my cultural differences with the US South was entertaining.

            They have chicken, mash and green beans for dinner. Sounds lovely. But then with this they have biscuits. Biscuits! For dinner! Over here, biscuits are sweet snacks that often get dunked in tea. But with research I discovered this is the name the South gives to scones.

            I wrapped my head around that. But when Ethan eats sweet potato covered in marshmallows? No. What’s next, chocolate on top of roast potatoes? (You carry on doing you, America. Good for you.)

            The last one I’ll mention has nothing to do with food but rather school. Ethan’s school day is eight hours long with eight periods in a day. Here, our school days are about six-and-a-half hours long; each period is an hour and the rest of the time is for assembly, morning and afternoon registration, break and lunch. To fit or that in, American periods must be really short. I’m surprised there’s enough time to get between classes and actually get into school work.

 

 

Miscellaneous

There are a few other things worth noting.

One of my favourite lines is: ‘Lena smothered the giggles down into the folds of her robes.’ Amazing description.

            Ethan’s aunts making up words whilst playing Scrabble is my favourite scene. When I reread this book, I laugh before I even start reading this part.

Marion snaps her umbrella shut. Someone replies to her and she snaps it shut again. But when did she open it again? This was a lapse of clarity.

The authors write that ‘Duchannes’, Lena’s surname, has three syllables with the last being rolled: ‘Du-kay-yane’. If it were rolled, the vowel sounds of the second and third syllable wouldn’t be the same.

The way family trees are drawn in the book are really weird and aren’t clear. Instead of the parents’ line (both are in one box separated by a slash) going to all their children, it goes to one child and the siblings are connected with a sideways line. But sideways lines also connect to siblings-in-law.

 

Critique: Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles #1) (Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl) 2/3

*****SPOILERS*****

 

Ethan and Lena

 

This is, after all, a love story.

We receive a huge internal monologue about Ethan wanting something other than friendship from Lena but he doesn’t want to risk what they have. I have empathy for this sensation but not how it was executed. Only two pages later (within the same chapter, no less!) he asks her out! Someone changing their mind is fine, but because Ethan made such a fuss over it, the build-up to the change should have been longer.

Ethan doesn’t know if Lena’s his girlfriend. Considering you’re always holding hands, that’s a giveaway. As is the fact that you spend all your time together and you, Ethan, have abandoned your friends for someone you really like.

Kissing Lena, Ethan says, is ‘like breathing’. This would be fine but Ethan had just used this analogy about having to be near Lena. So this was rather lazy.

 

 

I really can’t honey coat any of the following but Ethan has a tendency to think the idiotic.

At first, Ethan labels Mrs Lincoln’s anti-Lena campaign as normal. A little later, he tells Ridley that Mrs Lincoln has changed. The prose, however, doesn’t show that Mrs Lincoln’s behaviour has altered. So what happened for Ethan to think this?

Ethan says Lena doesn’t have to wear make-up. Um, excuse me? Nobody has to wear make-up to look good. (As a common attitude, it’s good characterisation to include it, but I can dislike it all the same.)

Whilst Lena looks through the Book of Moons, I don’t know why Ethan is missing school. He can’t touch the book so he can’t be of any help. So what’s the point of missing school?

Ethan thinks there’s a cost to saving his girlfriend now he ‘finally ha[s] one’. But he’s dated Emily.

The authors say that Ethan and Link ‘tap fists’. Yet what’s being described is a solid action, a bump, not small like a tap.

Ethan thinks he should never have treated Ridley like ‘some harmless party girl.’ But he never did.

We learn mortals eventually die if they’re touched with Casters. So Lena gets told she can have no future with Ethan because they can’t have kids or get married. Firstly, people can have a future with neither kids nor marriage. Secondly, marriage is a legal action so being unable to touch one another is irrelevant to that. Thirdly, they can adopt. Then Ethan mopes that he’d ‘never be able to be that close to her.’ Surely that shouldn’t break your relationship if you genuinely love each other?

 

 

Amma and Macon

 

These two are my favourite characters. (Aside from Boo, Macon’s caster dog. Who, by the way, wins literature for wearing a sparkly-blue cape.)

Amma is pure perfection. Whenever I see her name in the text I get excited. Macon isn’t someone to get excited about but he delivers some of the best quips.

Amma makes charms and Ethan’s dad used to say it was ‘better safe than sorry’, which Ethan takes to mean ‘safe from Amma’. She is one feisty lady so yeah, I’d agree.

When Mrs Lincoln looks at Boo, ‘you would’ve thought she was looking at Macon Ravenwood himself.’ Of course, because Boo is Macon’s Caster dog and he can see through Boo’s eyes, Mrs Lincoln is looking at Macon himself. Also, Mrs Lincoln is probably carrying Serafina by this point and Serafina will know it’s Macon looking at her.

Macon is so sassy. Everything he says is pure gold, particularly when he first meets Ethan. So when Macon and Amma interact, the potential is tingling. Indeed, they don’t disappoint: Macon wonders ‘what good is a seer that can’t see anything.’ B. U. R. N.

Unfortunately I had to re-evaluate my opinion of Amma when she snorts at Lena, to Lena’s face. That’s so utterly rude. I’ve never been disappointed in a fictional character before. (I understand why Amma did this and wouldn’t have it removed. However, it changed my liking of Amma nonetheless.)

 

 

School Friends 

 

Ethan’s friends aren’t nice people. Except for Link.

Ethan makes it clear Emily looks good but ‘looking at her didn’t make up for having to listen to her.’ That made me laugh so hard. Ethan has a lot of stingers in regards to Emily. She wants to read Lena’s notebook and Ethan says, “First you’d have to be able to read.”

Ethan owns up to the fact that he watched his friends bully people. Now he does something about it but only because Lena, the girl he fancies, is the victim. It’s nice he’s doing what’s right but it’s a shame that it’s only for his own selfish reasons.

The first time I read this book, Emory’s name being shortened to ‘Em’ threw me off track. It’s because I’ve only ever seen ‘Em’ as short for ‘Emma’ and Emory is infrequently mentioned so there was no time for me to adjust.

Ethan’s school friends have minor roles and thus seem unnecessary. If their roles/functions were transferred to another character, it wouldn’t detract from the plot. Indeed, not only would this get rid of excess characters, but those left would be bolstered and made stronger, more necessary. I understand that having many friends shows how popular Ethan is, but he mentions his popularity so often that the benefit of ‘show-not-tell’ goes out the window.

 

 

Foreshadowing for Larkin

 

Larkin appears to be a Light Caster because he has green eyes and he could enter Ravenwood Manor. It turns out the illusionist had just been disguising his golden Dark Caster eyes.

            There were several hints towards it. The most obvious example is when Boo barks at Larkin: Boo only barks at Dark Casters. A more subtle clue is that Larkin only enters Ravenwood Manor when he’s invited (even a simple ‘come on’ or ‘are you coming?’), and Dark Casters need that invitation to enter.

            My favourite bit of foreshadowing wasn’t one thing but instead a string of info that builds the foreshadowing together. Larkin’s favourite illusions are snakes, during which he has ‘eyes slit likes snakes’. Then Ridley’s arm is around Ethan ‘like a snake’ and her eyes are also slit. It’s foreshadowing by association and it’s clever.

            When they discover Larkin is Dark, Lena raves at him for being a traitor. But the family curse means the family, including Larkin, don’t get to choose to be Light or Dark. So blaming Larkin for being Dark isn’t justified. Especially, I might add, when Lena is so preoccupied with what she’d do if she went Dark. I understand the sense of betrayal but that’s not traitorous.