Ranking Disney’s Live-Action Remakes
Cynthia Erivo stars as the Blue Fairy in Disney's 2022 remake of Pinocchio.
Disney Animation has long been the standard for childhood entertainment. Whether you’re babysitting, just need 90 minutes of quiet, or genuinely love singing along to “Let It Go”, Disney movies are a safe bet. The studio has produced classics, like Beauty and the Beast, and some things that…well, they’re currently available on Disney+ (Look, if you’re a fan of Home on the Range, bless. You’re more patient than most.). But in recent years Disney has become known for more than great animation. Their real business is monetization.
The House of Mouse realized pretty early that millennials will pay for a hit of nostalgia so they don’t have to think about the world burning down around them. Thus, the Disney Live-Action Remake Era was born. Disney offers up a rehash of something millennials remember fondly (or even vaguely) and then rakes in the dough as the Y2K generation takes themselves and their kids to the theater.
Is it an artistically interesting formula? Not typically, but there are a few exceptions to this rule.
With Disney’s newest foray into adapting their own works, Pinocchio, set to launch on Disney+ September 8, it’s time to evaluate how the company is doing with repackaging their products for consumers. Let’s look at Disney’s current slate of Live Action remakes and see which ones are worth your time, and which ones are cynical cash grabs.
16. Dumbo (2019)
It’s almost impressive how bad Tim Burton’s adaptation of Dumbo turned out. The sheer amount of things that had to go wrong to make this version of the flying elephant fairytale worse than the 1941 animated movie (which prominently features horrendous racist depictions of both humans and birds) is gobsmacking. How did the man who made the definitive Batman movie (don’t come for me, Nolan people) fail to improve on the original?
Somehow this reunion of Burton, Michael Keaton, and Danny DeVito managed to be soulless and depressing. There’s a glimmer of what the movie could be, as Keaton is clearly doing some sort of unhinged Walt Disney/P.T. Barnum impression, but neither Burton nor the rest of the cast seem interested in following through on anything. Burton goes so far as to kill the best scene from the original (Dumbo’s mother comforting him while singing the heartbreaking “Baby Mine”) because emotions and character development are for filmmakers that still care about their craft. If you’ve just gotta see an elephant fly, watch the original on Disney+ and skip over the crows.
Both versions of Dumbo are available on Disney+
15. Pinocchio (2022)
Y’all…it’s not good. I’m still embargoed for another 24 hours, but rest assured, we’re coming back to this topic and breaking it down tomorrow.
Both versions of Pinocchio will be available on Disney+ September 8, 2022.
14. Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Once one of the most reliably interesting directors in Hollywood, Tim Burton’s second Disney phase ushered in his frenetic period. Though it can’t be denied that Alice in Wonderland was easily Burton’s most successful film to date, the movie itself is a cacophony of over-the-top performances and barely coherent storytelling. It also seemed to convince Burton that nothing mattered in his films except casting Johnny Depp to be some sort of flailing eccentric that bounces around lavish set pieces (I blame this movie for Dark Shadows and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).
Essentially, this movie is all vibes, no sense.
Helena Bonham-Carter in particular seems to at least understand the assignment, offering up a truly batty interpretation of the Queen of Hearts that is menacing and fun. The film ranks higher than Dumbo mostly for Bonham-Carter’s efforts and a truly interesting visual motif as Burton explores Wonderland. It’s a shame that the man who directed Beetlejuice couldn’t bring the same specificity to a retelling of the Lewis Carroll classic.
Disney’s adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, by contrast, was a wild, psychedelic trip, that understood the whimsy of Carroll’s work, but kept the story clean. It’s hard to beat the original for graphics or pacing, and Burton doesn’t seem to try.
Both versions of Alice in Wonderland are streaming on Disney+
13. 101 Dalmatians (1996)
This adaptation of the 1961 film has one great performance, a bunch of cute dogs, but falls oddly flat. Glenn Close straps on a black and white wig as Cruella de Ville, and sinks her teeth into the role with showy aplomb. But alas, the film isn’t just Close chewing scenery and screaming for the heads of puppies. Unfortunately, the audience is also subjected to the antics of Jeff Daniels and Joely Richardson as Roger and Anita. Daniels and Richardson seem to be starring in the world’s blandest romantic comedy which eats up valuable time we could be spending watching Close cackle or puppies frolic. It’s odd that the animated Roger and Anita seem to have more edge and intelligence than the humans who take over the roles. The whole film feels dumbed down for children, which is admittedly are the target audience. No one seems to be having any fun, though, save for Close and those cute puppy dogs.
While the original is a lesser classic in the Disney catalog, it’s got a certain wit and cool about it that plays to older and younger audiences. Though Close almost captures the magic of the original, there isn’t enough care in this adaptation. I’m also knocking it down the rankings because it inspired the fathomlessly worse 102 Dalmatians, for which arrests should have been made.
Both versions of 101 Damatians are available on Disney+
12. Aladdin (2019)
The classic Middle Eastern tale of the loveable street-rat who finds a genie lamp is updated to live action by…Guy Ritchie?
It’s an odd choice and one that doesn’t really pay off. Ritchie understands the scale needed to capture the epic but fails to capture the heart. He gives his signature touches, such as Aladdin’s frenetic parkour through the city, but the film feels oddly blank.
This is also an instance of Disney trying to “do a feminism”, which most of these updates are guilty of attempting. Instead of actually developing the female character in a new and interesting way, the film merely has the character yell “#girlboss!” and calls it a day. Naomi Scott’s Jasmine gets a brand new song about not staying silent and some cool ambitions about becoming Sultan, but in the end, she’s still captured and waiting for Aladdin to save her.
It’s also notable that Aladdin has the three leads yukking it up in American accents, Jafar, who’s been reduced to a frothing monster, has a Middle Eastern accent. So while Disney carefully eliminated the line “It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.”, they couldn’t be bothered to make sure their portrayal of the characters was as sensitive.
The one saving grace of the film is Will Smith’s Genie. Instead of trying to imitate the iconic performance of Robin Williams, Smith smartly infuses the Genie with his own brand of charisma. Instead of mile-a-minute impressions, we get sarcastic wit and charm. It’s a good update, and one that is much better than the movie it is stuck in. Ritchie has always understood how to put on a spectacle, but he lacks the ability to bring the emotion and charm the original boasted.
Both versions of Aladdin are streaming on Disney+
11. Beauty and the Beast (2017)
In a tried and true case of “don’t listen to the internet”, the live-action version of Beauty and the Beast took the first animated movie to be nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award and stuffed it full of defensive answers to internet hot takes. In doing so, they lose the magic, ruin the romance, and drag the story on for a nearly interminable time. Instead of a sweet tale about a man who changes to be worthy of the woman he loves, we get a movie about a snotty prince, who remains snotty…and holds his true love in a bit of contempt? The servants who were once just hapless comedic foils are now culpable for not stepping in and raising Beast to be a better person?
But hey, at least we solved the mystery of how old Beast was when that spell was cast!
Though making Beast a monster who remains, well… a jerk throughout the film is a problem, the real hit here comes with Belle. By casting Watson, who will forever be Hermione to many, Disney seems to think they have to turn Belle into that #girlboss figure they love so much. Now, instead of a bookworm, Belle is an inventor (kind of, it won’t come up again), a teacher (just the one time, she doesn’t care about Chip’s continuing education), and a genius who holds the town in contempt for not being as clever as she is. It’s an odd take that ruins one of the most compelling parts of Belle – the fact that she was an outsider yearning for connection.
It also doesn’t help that Watson’s singing voice is autotuned to the point that even T-Pain shout, “enough!”
Both versions of Beauty and the Beast are available on Disney+
10. Mulan (2020)
It’s hard out there for the princesses. Disney just can’t seem to recapture the magic with their live-action adaptations.
Mulan comes closer, with some truly stunning action sequences that emphasize what an impressive warrior the legendary character was. But the whole film is flat when the battles aren’t clashing in the foreground. Director Niki Caro made the admirable decision to make her adaptation closer to the traditional legend of Mulan, but it can’t seem to get out of its own way. Though the cast is stacked, featuring Jet Li, Li Gong, Donnie Yen, and Rosalind Chao, they have absolutely nothing to do. No one feels like a person, every character exists only to move Mulan along her hero’s journey.
By losing the humor and the heart, we’re left with wasted potential and cool battles. If Caro had worked a little more to bring the characters to life, the audience wouldn’t spend two-plus hours missing Mushu. This isn’t a movie for little kids, nor is it a movie for adults. Worst of all, you don’t even get to sing “I’ll Make a Man Out of You”, and that’s unforgivable.
Both versions of Mulan are streaming on Disney+
9. Christopher Robin (2018)
The characters from the Hundred Acre Wood are such pure little souls (unless they’re killing unsuspecting hot tub dwellers in horror movies), it’s hard to fathom them dealing with adult problems. So Christopher Robin had an uphill battle to fight.
The movie, which should have been titled Winnie the Pooh and Zoloft Too!, follows an adult Christopher Robin who has long since abandoned his Silly Old Bear in the Hundred Acre Wood. Robin struggles with a demanding job that forces him to neglect his family, memories of his time as a soldier in WWII, and feelings of depression that seem to overwhelm him.
Luckily for him, his old friends look him up. And after some adorable chaos, Winnie and the crew remind Christopher Robin that his family should be his number one priority. This of course fixes everything and everyone is happy and skipping through the Hundred Acre Wood by the end of the film.
While the original Winnie the Pooh cartoons sought to teach children simple lessons about growing up, Christopher Robin seems designed to target adults who feel trapped in life. Imagine getting diagnosed with depression and being issued a cuddly bear to hug instead of a prescription for anti-depressants. Still, when the film forgets the adult woes and focuses on the antics of Winnie, Piglet, Tigger, and Eeyore, it’s a sweet nostalgic romp.
Christopher Robin and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh are available on Disney+
8. The Lion King (2019)
I’m still not clear on why an all CGI film would be considered live-action, but here we are.
There’s one inherent problem with CGI remakes of all-animal cartoons: You lose the emotion. A realistic lion cub is never going to be able to convey the trauma and heartbreak that a cartoon cub can. As a result, you get The Lion King with none of the emotion.
This isn’t helped by everyone taking their roles so damn seriously. Chiwetel Ejiofor strips Scar of all the theatricality, so now he’s just a murderous uncle with no panache. Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner are pretty fun as Pumba and Timon, but a warthog and a meerkat do not make a movie. So, much like Mulan we now have a movie that has less appeal to young audiences but doesn’t feed the nostalgia of the audiences who grew up with the original.
Yes, the Beyonce song is good, but her performance as Nala is flat. Her Black Is King musical film, however, is wonderful and probably the best thing to come out of this rehashing.
Both versions of The Lion King streaming on Disney+
7. Maleficent (2014)
Oh reader, this movie is a mess. I’ll admit that here openly.
But the reason Maleficent ranks so highly among the Disney live-action remakes is due to it trying something different. In doing so, it becomes something fun: A magnificent mess. Director Robert Stromberg pulls a Wicked, turning the story of Sleeping Beauty on its head to make the villain a sympathetic antihero. It’s a formula that mostly works, thanks in large part to a delightfully over-the-top performance by Angelina Jolie. What works here is the film having the courage of its convictions: It picks a direction and runs with it.
What doesn’t work, is the rather fast and loose way the movie hits the main points of the story they’re creating. There’s a sexual assault metaphor, Aurora is turned into an idiot so the story can continue, a vague moral that the real “true love” is the friends we made along the way, and the worst offense: Maleficent doesn’t even turn into a damn dragon.
Also, this movie led to the absolutely abysmal Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (which is a children’s film about a fairy genocide that is promptly brushed aside as no big deal), which squandered any goodwill the original movie had.
Maleficent is available to rent or buy on Prime, Sleeping Beauty is streaming on Disney+
6. Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book (1994)
Remember the time Cersi Lannister and the Dread Pirate Roberts were in a Disney live-action movie?
This adaptation of Kipling’s classic is notable for a few reasons. First, it’s got a pretty good cast, including the above-mentioned Lena Headey, Cary Elwes, as well as Jason Scott Lee, John Cleese, and Sam Neill. Lee manages to convey childlike wonder as Mowgli without tipping the performance into infantalism, which is refreshing. This movie is more Indiana Jones than it is Bear Necessities, but it offers a certain nostalgic charm. It does one thing that so few of the modern live-action adaptions attempt: It offers something new.
This is not the exact same story told with people instead of animation cells, it’s a different tale working with the same premise. For that alone, it’s more interesting than most of these monotonous cash grabs. Also, the colonists were the bad guys in a 1990s film, which is pretty woke for the era, so I’ll give it points for that too.
Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book is available to rent or buy on Prime, The Jungle Book is streaming on Disney+
5. Lady and the Tramp (2019)
One day, CGI technology will be able to make animals that don’t have vacant eyes. Sadly, in 2019, we weren’t there yet.
Instead, we’re treated to Uncanny Canines who are haunting, instead of charming. Still, the animated Lady (Tessa Thompson) and Tramp (Justin Theroux) had our family’s dogs barking at the images on screen like they were Terminators.
But if you can get past the dogs, and damn is it hard to do that, the updated version of Lady and the Tramp is a lovely retelling of the story with some interesting updates. By expanding the world of Tramp, we get a grander scope of his life as a free dog, and why it might be enticing to Lady. Disney also wisely replaced the Siamese cats (and their song filled with stereotypes) with scatting cats doing a jazzy number about causing havoc.
These updates, and the brilliant idea to cast Sam Elliott as Trusty the hound, make Lady and the Tramp one of the more successful Disney remakes of the modern era.
Both versions of Lady and the Tramp are available to screen on Disney+
4. Cinderella (2015)
In many ways, Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella benefits from the slight source material. Disney’s 1950 version was a blockbuster, to be sure, but the film itself is rather flimsy: a pretty girl befriends mice, gets a fairy godmother, and goes to a ball in a beautiful blue gown. Those are the broad strokes, and you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who lists Cinderella as their favorite Disney movie.
And that’s why it was ripe for a live-action remake.
Instead of taking a beloved story and mangling it with hamfisted male-written #girlboss moments, we get a retelling of the classic fable that keeps the cartoonish whimsy and adds nuance. Cinderella is kind to a fault, not because she’s weak, but because kindness is one of the most difficult qualities to keep in the world she lives in. It’s rebellious to be kind, to not let cruelty break you or change you.
It’s also got some great performances to beef up the supporting roles. Cate Blanchett is a brilliant, snarling Evil Stepmother, who can gaslight or menace Cinderella, depending on her mood. And Helena Bonham-Carter is a delightfully daffy Fairy Godmother, who brings plenty of whimsy to the film. By keeping the tone close to the classic cartoon, the CGI animals aren’t quite as horrifying either and seem to fit the film’s greater aesthetic.
If you’re hoping for an enchanted princess feature, this is the closest Disney has come to successfully adapting their Happily Ever After catalog.
Both versions of Cinderella are available on Disney+
3. Cruella (2021)
In a case of “missed it by that much”, Cruella’s biggest problem is director Craig Gillespie getting hamstrung by the source material.
On paper, Cruella could have been a cool new Disney character for girls to admire. She’s fiercely creative. She’s resourceful. She’s confident. She doesn’t mind being loud and taking up space. These are all great things to teach young girls. It also helps that the gritty 1970s London setting and Baby’s First Punk Album soundtrack set a tone rife for rebellion.
But…this cool rebel girl is the same chick that’s going to demand puppy death in a matter of years. It’s a hard sell, is what I’m saying.
Every time we’re reminded of 101 Dalmatians the movie loses momentum. Cruella’s (Emma Stone) origin story? Dalmatians killed her mom. Pongo and Perdita? The children of said murder dogs and…SIBLINGS. Every time the old film is referenced it’s such a lunatic reveal that you wonder why we couldn’t have made an original movie about a London Fashion Punk starring Emma Stone.
Still, when you don’t think about the dogs too much, it’s a pretty fun little movie.
Cruella and 101 Dalmations are both available on Disney+
2. The Jungle Book (2016)
This is a perfect example of letting the (forgive me) bare necessities dictate an adaptation. Director Jon Favreau took the story from the original Disney animated classic and updated it with CGI animals (that don’t look quite as hollow-eyed as the creatures in The Lion King). It’s a simple retelling that doesn’t try to fix anything the internet is angry about, nor reinvent the wheel.
And by Mickey’s ears, it works.
The film is helped massively by a voice cast that knows exactly what type of movie they’re in. Bill Murray as the charmingly opportunistic Baloo and Christopher Walken as power-mad Giantopithicus King Louie are especially inspired choices. The lively voice recordings perk up what might otherwise be flat-looking CGI creatures. And these creatures are convincing. Idris Elba’s Shere Khan frightened a child so badly at my screening that she ended up in my lap. This brings up my real reason for placing this flick at the number two spot: It’s engaging. I was interested, and so was that poor traumatized kid (don’t worry, she was laughing before the credits rolled at Baloo).
Both versions of The Jungle Book are available on Disney+
1. Pete’s Dragon (2016)
I know, I know, the 1977 original wasn’t technically fully animated, but the dragon was, so I’m counting it.
Directed by David Lowery updates the story of an orphaned boy and his dragon. The setting changes from New England to the Pacific Northwest and Mickey Rooney is replaced by Robert Redford. It’s an upgrade all around, is what I’m saying.
Besides a cool new look for Elliott the dragon, the performances are all a bit more nuanced and interesting. Bryce Dallas Howard particularly shines as a park ranger who desperately wants to help Pete find a real family. Even the menace is more interesting, with Karl Urban embodying the climate crisis in one character as a logger who wants to hunt endangered species.
Lowery has a brilliant sense of spectacle, and this movie offers it up in spades. But even in the quiet moments, Pete’s Dragon is a sweet little film about the importance of finding your family.
Both versions of Pete’s Dragon stream on Disney+
So what’s your pick? Is there a good live-action Disney remake? Do you really like the dead CGI eyes of Simba in The Lion King? Tell me below and we can talk it out in the comments.
