Released in 2019, Lady and the Tramp was the first Disney live-action remake to be released on Disney Plus and not in theatres. I reviewed the original Lady and the Tramp a while back and talked about how much I liked the movie. It was one that I saw as a kid and I still have a soft spot for it now.
How to Download Lady and the Tramp (2019)
You can download or stream the film from a digital platform. Click on the Download button at the end of this review and make your choice. Check out also the original 1955 animated film.
The Movie Review
I was very excited to see this live-action remake, but after watching it, it turned out to be one of my least favorite of these remakes that Disney has done. I can see why they made the decision not to release this in theatres. I honestly could have seen this being a pretty big box-office disappointment.
The plot here in many ways is very similar to the original Lady and the Tramp. Jim Dear gives his wife Darling a lovely puppy for Christmas and they call her Lady. Lady, Jim, and Darling have a great life and they are all super happy. Living next door to Lady is a bloodhound called Trusty. Trust is voiced by Sam Elliot and it is the most perfect casting in this movie!
The other neighbor is Jock….but not the Jock I or anyone else was expecting! In the original Lady and the Tramp, Jock was my favorite character, he was a little Scottish Terrier and he was awesome. For some unbeknown reason, Disney changed Jock to be a female Scottish Terrier called Jacqueline, but she still goes by Jock. What a pointless and unnecessary change for Disney to make! That was strike one for this movie for me!
Yes, “Jock” is still Scottish and my sister (who is also Scottish) says that the character and joke are the same, but it just did not click with me at all. Eventually, Lady meets the street dog Tramp and he shows her what life is like out of the streets and they have a fun adventure and fall in love, even though he warns her that when a baby comes into the family the dog usually gets kicked out.
It is the same basic Lady and the Tramp story, but there is one key scene missing and it just so happens to be my favorite scene from the original. I am talking about the scene in the zoo where Tramp gets a beaver to help take off Lady’s muzzle. When I think of Lady and the Tramp, I think of that scene and it is cut here! They try to have some fan service with a beaver statue that helps get the muzzle off.
The voice cast and the acting cast to be fair all do a good job here. The dogs are cute enough and I think the movie looks decent. I have heard some people say that they think it is the worst-looking Disney live-action remake and I am not sure I would go that far. However, it does look more like a straight-to-streaming movie which it is and it actually had a much smaller budget as a result.
Yeah, this one did not work for me at all and I have tried to watch it twice now. I think the changing of Jock’s gender and ditching the zoo scene just killed this movie for me. Those were two things that I loved about the original and the fact they are not here sucks. You keep Jock the way he is in the original and you have them go to the zoo and I probably like this movie!
