A beautiful but emotionless remake
The Lion King is one of the greatest animated movies of all time, no doubt about it, but how does that translate to “live action?” It’s more CGI than anything, and boy does it look good, but a lot of the magic that made the Lion King the classic that it is just feels gone from the new Disney rehash.
The story follows pretty much exactly how the original one went. Simba is to be king one day but his uncle Scar has other plans that involve a whole lot of betrayal. Simba then has to stand up to family to take the title that is rightfully his.
So as I said before, this movie is absolutely gorgeous. The animals looks smooth and natural, the environment is lush, and it’s realistic as technologically possible. The problem is, we’re here to see the Lion King, not Planet Earth.
With keeping the animals looking like they should, you lose a lot of what makes animated movies fun. You lose the colorful choreographed music sequences, you lose the larger than life action, and you lose some bits that are absolutely hilarious. That famous hula distraction scene? Gone.
You also lose a lot of the emotion that animation can express. It’s hard to make a lion look sad, or happy, or enraged. You can’t really tell what the characters are feeling beyond what the words are conveying and the tone of voice, and even those don’t do enough most of the time. The scene where Mufasa dies (Sorry if that’s a spoiler but the original has been out for 25 years so deal with it.) just doesn’t have anywhere near the same impact as it once did because as Simba is “crying,” he has the straight face of any normal lion.
The cast did redeem it quite a bit for me though. The musical performances were hit or miss depending on the vocalist singing them, but the new cast were all perfect for their roles. Donald Glover and Beyonce both did stellar jobs as the two lead lions, while Seth Rogan and Billy Eichner brought a new take on Timon and Pumba that was different, but resulted in laughs nonetheless. Even John Oliver made his role funnier than it once was.
Overall, this movie feels like something that didn’t need to happen. It did happen though and many people will enjoy it nonetheless. If you’re truly interested in seeing how they interpreted the Lion King 25 years later, go and give this one a watch. In the end, despite the new version’s flaws, it’s still the Lion King at heart, and it’s extremely difficult to not like a story as good as this one.
The Movie Hall 
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