"Mulan 2" is an interesting movie. One might wonder where they could possibly take the story after the great success of "Mulan," having interestingly multifaceted characters at their disposal to toy with. Unfortunately, they settled with a slightly over-simplistic take on a very important topic for many people. The entire story, without spoiling anything, is about the yin-yang and keeping balance in all things, most notably love and marriage. This is the film’s strength, and also its weakness. The general idea of having to keep things in balance, especially between a husband and wife, between people who love each other, is a great topic to touch on and can give birth to a slew of different stories. The one they chose to tell was not necessarily a bad one or poorly written; however, it was too heavy-handed and blunt in its delivery. I get what they were trying to do, but so does everyone who watches it. There is a common saying in writing: ‘show, don’t tell,’ which is very applicable to film as well as for written literature. In "Mulan 2’s" case, the story is mostly 'tell,' with very little 'show.' Don’t get me wrong, there are moments of show and when they are done well, but most of the time the message is slapped in the audience’s face, the writers seemingly constantly asking, “Do you get it? Do you get it? Yin-Yang!” But even this isn’t all that bad, and I’ll get to that in a little while.
First off, I have to touch base on the characters. The first main character from the original film that we are shown is Mushu. Not that Mushu was annoying or anywhere close to Jar-Jar Binks, but opening with him has its pros and cons. It opens in a sly way, which is why it is a relatively good opening, but focusing so much on a secondary character for the first moments of the film, without even showing the titular character till a while later, is not the best choice. Mushu, like in the previous film, is mostly concerned about himself. Unfortunately, the writers decided to take each of the characters from the original film and emphasize certain features while downplaying other characteristics that were developed in the original. For Mushu, they exaggerated his self-centeredness, and instead made him completely narcissistic for the entirety of the film. His whole goal throughout all of it is for his own sake, and it is bad because of how much dialogue he has. This might not have been as bad as it is if they hadn’t toned down his humor in favor of self-appreciation and egotism. Then there’s Mulan. Mulan isn’t as bad as Mushu, but they diminished her strength and bravery, and made her appear more meek and gentle, more like a standard woman than the brave warrior that she became in the previous film. Shang is initially portrayed as a bumbling love-struck fool, emphasizing how awkward his conversations with Mulan were at the end of the original film, but later gets better. For the most part, the characters are presented in a semi-caricature-esque quality that mostly doesn’t change through the whole film. Ling, Yao and Chien-Po are completely one-sided, only characterized in one way. All of the original voice-actors are present except for Eddie Murphy as Mushu, and Miriam Margolyes as the Match-Maker. It is a good thing that they were able to get almost all the same voice-actors, but not getting Eddie Murphy again brought some problems.
As for the music, the orchestral and instrumental pieces are fantastic. The main theme is peaceful and beautiful, and the music playing with Mushu in the intro is catchy, funny, and pleasant to listen to. As for the musical numbers, the ones with lyrical accompaniment were decent. While the lyrics weren’t about nothing to do with the plot, they didn’t really progress the plot in such an effective manner as the other film did. None of those songs are significantly catchy, and are all forgettable. They even incorporated the same song, but changed the lyrics, which in itself isn’t a bad thing to do, and while it only lasts for a few minutes, it shows the lack of inventiveness on the song writer’s part. Perhaps the only song that is truly bothersome is the first song, but I will get to that later. Overall, the songs do aid a little to the progression of the plot, so they are not entirely bad. They are just mainly forgettable.
The jokes… Where to begin. The jokes in this film are either hit or miss. And most of the time they are like little boys using a toilet -- they miss. There are some genuinely funny moments, but most of them are due to the situational or stylistic decisions they made, most notably the intro song with Mushu and the betting on the engagement. The verbal jokes, mainly by Mushu and Mulan, are either terrible puns or jokes with flat punchlines. While the original had more humor based on the situation, it had a more serious tone and mainly only Mushu served to by the comic-break, and his delivery of the jokes was spot-on along with the rapid-fire way he would tell them with the ADD type personality all working together to a great effect. This time around, however, since Eddie Murphy is absent, Mushu’s jokes are slower, and not as spot-on. His lines are mostly straight-forward with no double-meaning or hidden sexual entendre for the parents to chuckle at like in other Disney movies. I’ll explain why that is in a moment.
The animation is definitely lacking the same sheen and polish that it had in the original film. This is probably due to the outsourcing to another animation company within Disney and a drastically decreased budget (going from Walt Disney Feature Animation to Disneytoon Studios). The main problem with the animation in "Mulan 2" is not the lacking frames of animation or the rather simplistic backgrounds and generic colors. It is the ‘bounciness’ of all the characters. This ‘bouncy’ effect is most noticeable in the character’s expressions, such as how the eyes seem to bounce up and down on the character’s face, not really standing still. Sometimes the whole circle of their head will bob about making it hard on the audience's eyes to focus on their faces. This also gives it a very comical and childish look compared to the tight-stylization of the original, and makes it look like like puddy. Combine this puddy with the overemphasis of certain characteristics, and each character becomes a caricature of their former selves. It also seems that they may have tried to apply this ‘bouncy’ look to cover up the missing frames of animation, or perhaps to make it look more childish to appeal to a much younger audience. And that takes me to my final point and surmise.
"Mulan 2" was made for little children, especially between the ages of around four to six years old, instead of a more wider, general audience like most other Disney movies. Four minutes into the film, there is a little girl of about six years old that has a considerable amount of lines, considering she doesn’t even have a name. Her high-pitched, shrieking voice brings pain to my ears, especially after being relaxed to the beautiful opening music. This could have been a cute moment, but it goes on for far too long, and her voice is so grating to hear (I am convinced they had the mic too close to her and she screamed each of her lines with extra enthusiasm while recording). It is for this demographic, these little children of around four to six years of age, that this movie was intended to be viewed by. This little girl is supposed to be a character for the viewers to stand in as, to sympathize with and feel overjoyed by the excitement of meeting Mulan (no doubt this is a clever ploy by Disney to make little girls who watched this want to go to Disneyland to meet Mulan as well). And since it is aimed for such a young age group, the jokes are awkward and painful to hear, the conversations are simplistic and mostly cringe-worthy, and the serious, mature tone is completely absent. This is why the animation is ‘bouncy’ and like a cheap Miyazaki ripoff Saturday-morning cartoon that only dedicated fans would watch. The film itself is a means to entertain your small children while you go out and do laundry; it is not meant to entertain most prepubescent children, teens, and especially not adults. If viewed in this manner, the film does its job. I am not a little girl who’s six years old, but I am confident that a girl who is six years old and enjoyed the original "Mulan" would find "Mulan 2" to be very entertaining, perhaps more entertaining than the original. For everyone else though, it is probably better to avoid it. It does have some genuinely funny moments, but they are so far and few between that its awkwardness and betrayal of what you knew about the original characters is probably enough to put you off. If you do decide to watch it, however, you must bare through the first twenty minutes or so. If you can bear through that nearly nonstop barrage of painful awkwardness and grating voices, then the rest of the film is not nearly as bad as it initially appears to be. By no means is it a worthy sequel, nor is it a sequel that should have ever happened.
I personally had difficulties struggling to make it past the first 20 minutes due to the amount of sheer discomfort I was feeling while watching it, cringing most of the time, but after I got past that major hurdle, it was mostly smooth sailing throughout. I cringed during the heavy-handed conversations and the awkward jokes, but I did get a chuckle now and then from something that probably wasn’t intended to get a laugh. It was not the worst Disney sequel that I have seen, but it is definitely not the best. I do not recommend this to anyone who is over the age of 10 unless you are extraordinarily brave (as brave as I was, I might cheekily add). Instead, I recommend you go and watch "Mulan," for it is still a great movie.
