I’m miffed at Mickey.
Disney, Hollywood’s Meh-gic Kingdom, has once again delivered another awful live-action remake of a well-loved cartoon.
For more than a decade, the House of Mouse has been addicted to these robotic abominations. It’s a sickness.
Over the weekend, the latest poor unfortunate soul was “Lilo & Stitch,” that sweet little 2002 movie about a Hawaiian girl and her fuzzy alien friend.
Said Disney: “Let’s ruin it!”
As only Diz knows how to do, the studio turned the story into a soulless downer, made its color palette practically sepia and tacked on an extra half hour of dead air.
It’s a rancid trend, as evidenced by the PR and box office wreckage of “Snow White” with Rachel Zegler, and the sloppy mush they made out of “The Little Mermaid.”
Bob Iger and Co.’s maniacal formula? Take cherished movies, uglify ‘em, clumsily toss in political correctness and — presto! — here’s a lousy cash grab.
Has any of these debacles ever improved upon the animated original? Nope.
Has one ever even been on par? Nope.
Have all the corporate automatons cruelly stomped on the magic and creativity of millions of childhoods? Oh, yes!
And yet the nasty habit, born out of pathetic desperation, shows no sign of letting up. The company that actually employs artisans known as “Imagineers” has got no imagination left in the tank. So, rinse and repeat, it is.
I’m still enraged by the 2019 “Lion King” update, which warped Simba, Mufasa and Scar into harsh, photo-realistic animals. Look, kids! A lifelike warthog and meerkat ridiculously singing “Hakuna Matata” with beady eyes and expressionless mouths!
Suddenly families were watching “Planet Earth: The Musical.” Perhaps Nala will kill a zebra.
And what a calamity 2023’s “The Little Mermaid” was. Take it from me — it was definitely not better down where it’s wetter.
I wanted to crawl out of my skin when Prince Eric tried to make out with Ariel during “Kiss the Girl.” In the cartoon, the innocent flirting is cute and romantic. But when played by actual human actors, some tapioca-bland guy putting the moves on a mystified mermaid who can neither verbally communicate nor knows what a fork is becomes very, very creepy.
Disney also loves to wedge in inferior songs to inflate the runtime. In “Mermaid,” Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote a puerile rap for Scuttle the Seagull, played by Awkwafina, called “The Scuttlebut.” Icepicks to my ears.
And I don’t have enough available space to fully tackle “Snow White.” There were the dwarfs that were depicted as CGI lawn gnomes to avoid offending the little person community. And, ugh, Snow’s love interest was shifted from Prince Charming to a vague Robin Hood dude named Jonathan.
Dumping in politics — you know, what all under-12 audiences crave — Jon’s band of woodland rebels plotted to overthrow the evil queen who forced all her subjects into the military. What fun!
And now comes “Lilo & Stitch” to continue the long tradition of painful inadequacy.
A major plot point in the remake is Lilo’s big sister Nani needs to get them health insurance. Seriously.
The worst part is “Lilo & Stitch” will probably gross $1 billion. Little kids adore Stitch (he’s pretty much talking merch) and their millennial parents love infantilizing themselves. It’s a match made in hell.
So, undeterred, Disney will keep pumping these out, stretching their IP until it snaps. And the studio that was once at the forefront of animation is now a boring recycling plant.
A cultural afterthought.
A mini mouse.
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