Remember... (The Lion King 2019)

241.

Lion King

 

 

4/10
 

Here we go again. Disney giving a money-spinner and an easy way out from creating anything truly new. The original Lion King was a masterpiece and easily one of the best Disney movies to have been released, recognisable in most places so why do they feel the need to poke and pry and more than likely change things. They have most of the cast, which would have happened anyway but they also made sure they brought back James Earls Jones for the voice of Mufasa. When I found out that they were not bringing back Jeremy Irons for Scar and popping in Chiwetel Ejiofor instead, I was far from happy. Rawan Atkinson is still alive and kicking, he should be on the list too but I'm not happy with the Irons choice. Beyonce is now on the list as Nala and I can imagine that could only bring one of her songs during the movie. I really hope someone gets fed to the lions for this.

 

 

To the most part, this movie followed the original scenes no and again and when I mean followed, I mean shot for shot but the parts it didn't follow, Jesus. This movie was bloody bad but I'll start with the good stuff, or thing. The CGI was faultless and cinematography was at a high quality and visually, the movie was really stunning. That's were it stops. Due to the fact of them try to make the movie so realistic, as a live action that actually wasn't a live action, the movie actually lost its soul. Because of this wanted realism, there was absolutly no characteristics on the faces of the characters. If another person tells me, 'yeah but there are meant to be lions!', why are they talking then?? Simba had the same expression on his face when he was playing around with Nala as when he was standing next to his father's dead body and it felt empty compared to the animation from the 90's.

 

 

I could go on forever with things that I didn't enjoy. The recasting of Scar didn't work either. There was no sassiness, no sarcasm and that is exactly what Scar was famous for. He was a dried up uncle with a chip on his shoulder and the humour was lost. That goes for the rest of the movie too. The cast of the casting was alright. I enjoyed Seth Rogan as Pumba but as for Beyonce, she must have wanted it in her contract to be centre stage at times. There was a lovely feminism scene as Nala takes on the Hyenas and saves the day to an extent but hey-ho, we can't leave a movie without a scene like that these days.

 

 

The movie had seemed to be spread out and a lot of additional scenes added just to make the run time longer. Stick to the story as it was, people don't want the movie to be longer, they want the Lion King that they knew but improved. It was pissed all over. Instead of wanting to shed a tear when Mufasa died, I wanted to shed the tear at the end with this being a horrible experience. The one redeeming feature other than the CGI really was Mufasa and then they ruined his reincarnation as a cloud. This movie was like watching a National Geographic episode with some terrible voice over. Even Elton John chimed in and said he wasn't happy with the music and was never actually brought on board to help out. Now that is a crime! I wasn't a fan of the remake of the Jungle Book by Jon Favreau and this joins the collection by making it two out of two. Sort it out Disney! At least I can go back and watch the only good version of this movie now.