Lady and the Tramp

Lady and the Tramp is the live action remake of the 1955 classic, telling the story of an unlikely relationship formed between a street Tramp and a home Lady.

Lady and the Tramp has the similar problem with every Disney's live action remakes of its original animated films, especially the ones featuring nonhuman characters like The Lion King (2019). The dogs here are cute for sure, but the voice acting is way more expressive than the realistic facial animation that these two do not sync with each other, hence taking you out of the moment. Baby voices for puppies are even worse. For the human characters, some of the voice dubbing doesn't sit properly on top of the lip movements.

The plot is a faithful retelling of the source material, with changes here and there, some for the better and some for the worse. For example, the relationship between Lady (voiced by Tessa Thompson) and her owners is not as well developed as it was in the cartoon. It was kinda brushed through, therefore we don't feel sorry for her as much as we would like to. But, the Dog Catcher's (Adrian Martinez) conversation with Jim Dear (Thomas Mann) while Tramp (voiced by Justin Theroux) was hiding in the kennel, Tramp's backstory and him being accepted into the family are truly well done. There are some pretty good setups and payoffs, with the rodent and howling being examples.

Tramp and Lady's romantic awkwardness is portrayed like how it was back then, with the spaghetti scene being iconic once again! While the town exploration part that occupies most of the second act is a huge borefest, both canines enjoying the night view from mountain top is really nice! Speaking of both the canines, both the felines destroying Lady's house is fantastically executed. Disney's push for forced diversity clouds one of its products yet again, but it doesn't rain much here to entirely spoil the outcome per say.

Technicality wise, the editing is smooth for the most parts. 3D hand-drawn animation in the beginning before it transforms into live action is astounding! As far as the production design goes, the quality shows. The setting, the snow, the houses and the world is seriously gorgeous even though most of it is simple!