Film Review - The Lion King (2019)

The Lion King is another remake of a Disney animated classic this time 1994’s The Lion King gets this treatment and this time Jon Favreau takes the directors chair with a style similar to his 2016 version of the Jungle Book, the story however remains the same Simba (JD McReary and Donald Glover) is destined to be king but his evil uncle Scar (Chiewetel Ejiofor) plots to take the throne which sends Simba into exile but the once and future king cannot ignore his destiny forever.

This new version of the Lion King starts off very well and I mean very well with a recreation of the famous opening the Circle of Life that will get even the most hardened cynic of this version on board with it as it looks stunning with realistic animal animation and no dialogue and part of me did get very emotional during that opening recreation.

But as for the rest of the movie well here is where the problems begin as outside of that opening where the animals aren’t asked to emote in any way the rest of the movie requires this and you go from a stunning recreation to a miserable failure as in going for this very realistic style of animal animation it limits their ability to have expressive human like faces where they can properly emote like they can in the animated film and as a result you end up feeling very little while watching this movie.

And emotion was the name of the game when it comes to the 1994 original be it the songs like I Just Can’t Wait to Be King, Be Prepared or Can You Feel the Love Tonight? To the famous Wilderbeest Stampede to the Mufasa Cloud scene, one scene after another where you really feel this strong connection to these animals on the Savannah that is almost completely gone as there is zero expression on the faces and the voice actors have to do that much more work with their vocals.

And there is where I want to go next firstly James Earl Jones sounds flat this time as Mufasa and I hope he is in good health (He’s currently 88) but much like in Rogue One he was sounding also a little frail, Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner are okay as Timon and Pumbaa but they really just end up imitating Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella while Donald Glover is terrible as the older Simba just sounding bored the whole bloody time as if he’s above this voice over crap.

As for Ms Beyonce well I felt she was wasted as Nala, her role is barely expanded upon from the original film and again sounds flat while her song Spirit feels very out of place on the soundtrack and one of my big big concerns for this new version Mr Ejiofor as the new Scar is actually okay and certainly equips himself much better than Mr Kenzari did as the new Jafar in the recent Aladdin but also like Mr Kenzari he just cannot hold a candle to Jeremy Irons from the original.

And look this new version of the Lion King much like May’s Aladdin and the 2017 version of Beauty and the Beast are not bad movies but their also just very very very bland each and every one of them and look if you’re a fan your going to go and see this new version regardless and I won’t step in the way but its also just nowhere the original film and I hope neither of these live action remakes become the default versions, 2 out of 5.