*Originally written July 20th, 2019*
The original Lion King is no doubt my favourite film Disney has ever released. I remember when this was announced I was actually quite excited for it, as I quite liked the Jungle Book remake and a couple of the others. Then something changed, maybe it was me or just the fact I just started to quickly see the rapidly declining state of cinema as these live-action Disney remakes got churned out faster and faster. I mean, this is only the third of five planned films this year alone. I lost all my will towards these after the dull Aladdin.
It turns out my fears were founded. We've dug this property out of its graved, given it a $200 million coat of paint and failed to do anything unique or interesting with it. Yes, it's competently made as it goes through a story we've seen previously beat for beat, but it never amounts to anything close to exciting or capturing the magic from Disney's long gone glory days.
It's the law of diminishing returns in full effect. I'm okay with remakes as long as you do something interesting and change it around a little. Hell, I give Tim Burton's Dumbo even more credit now for at least straying away from the original film and taking the story in a different direction. This just regurgitates a story with seen before. It lacks any sort of surprise or tries to do anything to make it worth retelling the story. It's just so lazy and cynical.
The most annoying thing is the fact it's very competently made. The CGI effects here bringing the photo-realistic animals alive are genuinely incredible and are incredible to look at. Simba as a cub is insanely cute and easy to get attached to, while Scar still has his intimidating design that makes him a great villain, but lacks Jeremy Irons sinister voice performance.
While the animals do look insanely realistic, it also works as a disservice to the story. The 2D animation of the original film made these characters very emotive and easy to care about. This "realistic" depiction has a harder job as the characters here do not emote at all. It's very strange and makes it hard to feel anything when they go through the emotional beats. They always just look like animals who's mouths move, but their faces stay the same, it's so weird and off-putting, taking me completely out the film. It's strange, as they managed to pull this off a lot better (From what I remember) with their Jungle Book remake, but 3 years on, the realism of the animation is better, but completely takes you out the performance and fails to create an emotional bond with these characters, despite the Hamlet inspired story and script unfolding more or less shot for shot.
The star studded cast are very hit and miss. There are some very inspired performances that work, like John Oliver as Zazu and Seth Rogen as Pumbaa, who were both surprising highlights for me. Everyone else though, sadly failed to leave an impact on me. It was cool to have James Earl Jones back as Mufasa, but that must have been an easy paycheck for him, just replicating his performance from 25 years ago for an each paycheck. Barely any of this cast came close to capturing the charm of the original. Shame they didn't have cameos from any of the original cast, although Matthew Broderick is probably too busy killing women in car "Incidents" (The word "Accident" would imply no one is to blame) in Ireland.
This film is going to make over $1 billion and it's inevitable. It's fine. I have no faith left in cinema anymore and these live-action remakes aren't going to stop coming, plus I'm always going to see them out of curiosity. I just feel the same about The Lion King as I have about several others. It boasts groundbreaking special effects to bring this stuff to life, but it loses the heart and soul that made the original films so wonderful. I just left this feeling cold and wishing I just watched the gorgeous 4K remaster of the original instead.
I remember when I'm going through the Disney classic animated films for the first time (Which I'm still working through), I watch them and think I can't wait to watch them again, but with all three of the live-action remakes so far this year, the last thing I've wanted to do is see them again. I have faith Disney will hopefully do something interesting once they've burned through their library of films to remake. Hell, maybe even the inevitable sequels to the live-action remakes will at least do something different with the story and take them to uncharted territory. As for now, we're just continuing to rehash old stories to depressing effect and it's a shame, as I know Disney are much better than this when they want to be.
5/10 Dans
The Lion King is out now in cinemas in the UK
Watch the trailer below:
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