Review of Mulan (1998) by Joe H — 15 Apr 2012

Without a doubt my favorite Walt Disney animated musical. I still remember seeing this in the theater so clearly. I'll be honest and say that it is very possible that the fact that it is scored by Jerry Goldsmith may play a big part in my liking it as much as I doâ"it's among my Top 5 favorite Goldsmith scoresâ"but, even aside from the masterpiece of a score, the movie itself is just a lot of fun; a perfect balance of drama, action/adventure, and humor. At times, Mushu (Eddie Murphy) as well as the Ancestors sequence can feel a LITTLE out of place but, at least as far as Mushu is concerned, within time he just becomes a natural part of the story and you forget how out of place Eddie Murphy playing a Chinese dragon is :D If there is one quibble I have with it it's that I feel like Shan-Yu (the villain of the piece) doesn't get enough screen time. He and the Huns, even though they are a huge part in the overall story, just seem like BACKGROUND characters a lot of the time. You almost forget about them. But that's not a big enough problem to detract from my very very VERY high opinion of this movie.

Of course, at times "Mulan" also makes me a little depressed because it came out when audiences were starting to get tired of Disney's animated musicals :( Which then launched us into a long age of darkness and CGI-only movies. "Mulan" was (at the time) the end of an era. But of course, I am hopeful that we are indeed seeing its return (in "The Princess and the Frog", and even "Tangled", even though it wasn't hand-drawn, really captured the spirit of the 90's Disney animated musicals!) in new and exciting ways!