This is the big one. Disney had done an incredible (and profitable) job rehabilitating it’s brand in the five years prior. The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin all garnered critical acclaim and made big money. Those three films are so good that they re-invented the animated film genre. Would Lion King be a worthy follow-up? Well, sorry to spoil the review, but yes, yes it would.

The Lion King would smash the box office. It probably feels obvious that having a film full of cute animal characters in animated form would be easy money so there’s no surprise here. What really helps The Lion King though is just how memorable the main characters are. Twenty-six years later we still remember James Earl Jones’ voice as Mufasa. We remember Scar singing “Be Prepared”. We remember Simba and Nala as young children and when they reunited under “Can You Feel The Love Tonight”. Even the supporting characters are pretty strong and entertaining. Rafiki, Timon, Pumba, Zazu and the Hyenas are all remembered to this day.

While The Lion King isn’t based on a classic fairy tale as past Disney animated films are, it still tells a familiar story (especially to Shakespeare’s Hamlet). I find it interesting that Disney didn’t stick to a formulaic Disney princess line after Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. It went right ahead and tried different things with Aladdin and Lion King. The combination of cute animals + movie not jut for girls + deep story clearly works. So despite that it feels like Hamlet, The Lion King actually feels fresh and original.

Earlier I wrote that the film looked big, but it also sounds big. The songs with the accompanying visuals are loud, colorful and big. “Circle of Life”, “Can’t Wait to Be King”, “Be Prepared” and “Hakuna Matata” are all in your face songs and classics to this day. The only emotional song is “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” (well, and the Stampede Instrumental) but that’s great too. The Stampede Instrumental is the hidden gem of the music though. Hans Zimmer truly is a musical genius.

The voice acting is actually hit or miss for me. James Earl Jones is obviously iconic as Mufasa, and I’m a fan of Jeremy Irons as Scar. I think Jonathan Taylor Thomas does really well as young Simba in the film’s most emotional moments. I also like Whoopi Goldberg as Shenzi. Otherwise, I don’t really think much of the voice acting. I actually don’t care at all for Nathan Lane as Timon, or Ernie Sabella as Pumbaa…but that may be because I don’t care for the characters either. Matthew Broderick as Adult Simba also feels forgettable other than one scene. The reasons for this are two fold. The first one we will get to in a moment, and the second is he has to basically live up to Jones as Mufasa and quite frankly that’s some big shoes to fill.

I believe you can split The Lion King into two parts (and frankly am almost surprised Disney didn’t try to milk us with two films with the remakes). The first part is the opening through Mufasa’s death. To me this half of the film to me is up there with the greatest work ever put up on the big screen. It’s fun, it’s emotional, it has great characters. The bond between Simba and Mufasa is perfectly crafted. The music is awesome. It’s especially hard to not be emotionally invested at the very end of this half. It’s a complete masterpiece.

Then The Lion King really takes a dip in quality. I know that may not be a popular opinion, but we leave this emotional and gripping story to watch Simba pal it up with Timon and Pumbaa while Scar takes control of Pride Rock. While I understood why Simba ran (Scar made it seem like the whole thing was Simba’s fault), as I got older I never really connected with Simba here. As he gets older it never hit him that he deserted his mother, his friends and I find that to be complicated but also a bit horrible. Not sure, Simba clearly doesn’t think Scar is a horrible person and thinks Pride Rock is still fine, but I can’t really draw the emotional connection between Simba and his mother and Simba and Nala. I get that the Hakuna Matata part of the film is for kids and such, probably to get them to stop crying after seeing Mufasa dead on the big screen (which was jarring to me as a kid). I truthfully don’t recall how I felt back then. Scar is no better. Scar goes from a clever, conniving and sarcastic villain to an absolute whiner. Whether it’s asking Zazu to sing tor complaining about the lioness’ ineffectiveness at hunting, the Scar of the first half is clearly gone for whatever this is. The only part that really gets me back into things in the second half of course is the Mufasa in the clouds scene and the very ending is solid (although, Simba’s family seems to just let Scar walk Simba off a cliff, which is a direct slap in the face of the message of confronting your past).

The Disney Renaissance peaked here. Lion King made all the money and if Youtube existed back then “Hakuna Matata” would have been as popular as “Let It Go”. This was obviously the big success for Disney in the 90s. I actually find it curious that they went back to human-like characters to tell future stories.

Best Scene: Gotta go with two:  The entire “Be Prepared” sequence is so ridiculously over the top it’s incredible and the Stampede is one of the greatest scenes in cinema history.

Worst Scene: Hearing Scar whine and complain once he was in charge is such a let down. Making Zazu sing songs? What the heck happened?

Personal Story: I don’t really have one. Hearing “The Morning Report” through in a future special edition almost made me sick though.

Final Thoughts: This is half an S film and half a B. I actually find it to be the weakest of the big four, although I give different credit to The Little Mermaid.

Grade: A-

Released: July 19, 2019

First Seen: In Theaters, Near Opening Night

Last Watch: Disney+

When reviewing Aladdin we went over Disney’s motivations for making these live-action remakes. I’ve generally found the remakes to be somewhat better than public perception. That changed with The Lion King.

There were two common critiques with 2019’s Lion King. The first is that it is a shot by shot remake. I don’t really understand this. While I think it takes much less chances and makes much less changes than the other Disney remakes had, there are still many moments different here than the original. Unfortunately, most of these changes are pretty bad. While I could compile a list, I’ll point out the three worst examples. For one, “Be Prepared” is absolutely butchered (while I still enjoy the scene for different reasons, not having the song and the original scene with it is still a massive downgrade). I find it odd that this decision was made as there are still other songs that remained in the film (also, clearly Chiwetel Ejiofor can sing, as evidenced by what was left of “Be Prepared”). Second, Rafiki in the original tells Simba that “the past can hurt, you can either run from it, or, learn from it”. It’s an iconic line that precedes the scene where Mufasa appears in the clouds. For some reason that’s removed which is quite mind-boggling to me. Third, there whole entire visual representation of the circle of life ends up being a 3 minute expedition of Simba’s fur going through various situations, one of which being rolled into a ball of dung. Language warning here: but I said outloud in the theatre “what the fuck am I watching?” (definitely felt bad because children were in the theater, although I got a laugh and no complaints from other crowd members).

I didn’t even get to the second critique, which was that the film seemed lifeless. And well, yes. Yes it does and it’s distracting. It also ruins any appreciation for the voice acting (which, despite an all-time stellar cast somehow ends up as completely forgettable, even James Earl Jones can’t save it). It also ruins some of the more heart-wrenching moment of the film. In another clearly audible moment I laughed pretty hard at Simba yelling “NOOOOO!” when his father died. It’s done ridiculously bad and it’s truly an embarrassing feat that Disney even put that on the big screen. This critique also puts forth another question. Why did Disney decided to do this film as photo-realistic? Yes, it’s called the live-action Lion King and even I referred to it as that, but other than some shots this film is completely animated. The insistence to have this film be “realistic” when it’s animated is a bizarre choice artistically to say the least. I mean where are the colors? Pride Rock looks lifeless on it’s best shots. Again, this is animated, so what the heck happened? Africa is one of the most beautiful places in the world!

I don’t really have much else to say about the characters or the vioce acting that I haven’t already (again, the look of the film totally distracts from it). Scar is more intimidating but also bland and boring. I actually like Timon and Pumbaa a little bit more. I got some laughs this time from Billy Eichner’s Timon, especially with the “Be Our Guest” bit.  Beyonce and Donald Glover amazingly are both forgettable, and “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” doesn’t hold up to the original. John Oliver as Zazu unfortunately is more annoying than funny (which really disappointed me as an Oliver fan). The great James Earl Jones can’t save his scenes either for the previously mentioned visual issues. I do like Chiwetel Ejiofor as Scar as Scar does come off as more vicious,  but I don’t like him nearly enough to really make a difference.

Look, I know a wrote a lot more about Aladdin, but there I felt like that needed more of a defense. Quite frankly, the 2019 version of The Lion King sucks. I get that it hit a lot of people on that nostalgic level, trust me, I’ve been there. But my feeling when I left the theater was that I was offended Disney even released the film. The original Lion King was an animated masterpiece, full of striking colors and amazing character designs. And the story ranged on good to amazingly great. This was just an insulting money grab. Unfortunately, because it worked we’re getting a sequel. I didn’t feel this way about Aladdin, Alice in Wonderland, Beauty and the Beast or The Jungle Book. I thought all of those were goodish or at least brought something to the table (yes, that’s my defense of Alice). This didn’t do any of that and it’s a shame.

I didn’t want to end this on a completely negative note, so I will praise two things about the film. One, Hans Zimmer somehow came up with a stronger Stampede instrumental, which insane considering the original is one of the greatest pieces of music to ever hit the big screen (and well now this is). Find it on Youtube and watch it. I also have come to appreciate the version of “Be Prepared” in this film. No, it doesn’t hold a candle to the original and apparently it was added last minute. But it’s still a strong scene. Lastly, Disney has been looking to give women characters stronger roles overall. You see it especially in the remakes, and while I am all for it it’s admittedly hard to make it work with the original story (the issues with Jasmine becoming Sultan in Aladdin, for example). Here Nala is given a little more screen time as she takes initiative into escaping the Scar led Pride Rock to find help. I find that to be a positive change for sure and at least adds some character for her. Sarabi and Shenzi also have a bit of a feud which isn’t expanded upon, but again at least it’s something different and not detrimental to the film or the vision of the original.