The Lion King (2019)

[baumer]

May god have mercy on your soul. 

[chasmmi]

This was not good. It was not completely terrible, but it is literally the animation in faux live action form. 

 

As in I think  James Earl Jones literally had the exact same lines as first time around. 

 

Everything is the same, but only at about 70% the energy of the original. 

[The Panda]

It’s a beautiful VFX Tech Demo, I cant wait until they decide to make a movie out of it!

 

 

Actual Thoughts:

 

On the bright side, the VFX is gorgeous, there’s quite a few long sequences letting you watch nature, it’s the main positive of the film.

 

Besides that, it’s really just The Lion King. There’s nothing new, it’s just the Lion King (albeit an inferior one) with a new animation style.

 

The only major addition, Beyoncé’s song, honestly detracts from the film and doesn’t fit in tonally imo.  Scar is worse in just hour every way.  They butcher Rafikis character and remove some of his key moments.  Beyoncé leaves a lot to be desired.

 

The Lions have no facial expressions, yet for some reason the Hyenas do, which makes it even more jarring.  All of the energy of the original is also toned down because they’re too scared to go wild in letting the animals be expressive.  Interesting musical numbers are turned into animals running toward the screen while they’re singing.

 

Throughout the movie, I constantly wanted to turn this one off and just watch the original instead.

 

D+

[AndyChrono]

SPOILERS obviously.

 

The Lion King is a technical masterpiece that unfortunately is really held back by some sub-par (voice) acting, singing, and directing choices.

The core story line is 99.9% the same as the animated version. No real surprises here. I was worried about whether Chiwetel Ejiofor could replace Jeremy Irons, but overall I think l he did Scar proud. He, along with Timon (Billy Eichner) and Pumbaa (Seth Rogen) are the clear standouts among the voice cast. On the flip side, Donald Glover really phones it in and is shockingly bad as adult Simba. Beyoncé has no acting chops at all and she isn't playing Nala so much as just playing Beyoncé. The rest of the cast - Alfre Woodard, James Earl Jones, etc - are solid.

 

Let's talk about the songs which IMO are a huge hit and miss in this version.

• The opening Circle of Life was IMO the best of the soundtrack, so the film definitely started on a high note.

• I Just Can't Wait To Be King has some great energy and keeps the momentum going. At the end of this, I was feeling really great about the movie.

• Unfortunately it is all downhill from there. Be Prepared is shockingly bad as they cut the entire song down to just a speech and 30 seconds of actual singing.

• Hakuna Matata tries to recapture some of the momentum but IMO it really lacked the carefree energy the song should have.

• Can You Feel The Love Tonight is absolutely butchered. Donald Glover is Emma Watson level bad at singing, and Beyoncé injects way too many vocal runs into her parts. The entire thing just lacks sincerity and sounds like stuff you would hear on American Idol.

• Spirit is the new Beyoncé song, and after listening to the full length version on YouTube, it's decent. The problem is that in the movie they cut it down to only a ~30 second snippet so it never even has a chance to hit your emotional chords and make an impact. My reaction in the theater was basically: "Oh new song! Wait... that's it!???"

Overall, they made some really questionable choices with the songs. I think most folks going into this are going to want to see the classic song set pieces recreated as faithfully as possible. And indeed, they did this with Circle of Life, I Just Can't Wait To Be King, and to a lesser extent Hakuna Matata. That's probably why I found those songs to be the better ones. What they should have done is continued to do this so that we got a full length version of Be Prepared instead of this neutered version. Can You Feel The Love Tonight should have been sung with more sincerity (and not in the daytime...). They also should have let Spirit be a full length song so that there is actually something new that folks can take away from this.

 

That brings me to the directing. In addition to the poor choices with the songs, the film also makes poor choices with many of the scenes. Many scenes like Mufasa teaching Simba the lesson, the stampede, Simba vs Scar's battle, Simba climbing Pride Rock at the end, etc. are literally EXACTLY the same as the animated version. And I stress both "literally" and "exactly"! Such a blatant copy of the scenes just takes you out of your immersion in the film because your reaction isn't going to be what the filmmaker intended, but instead it's going to be "I've seen that before."

 

Now while it sounds like a contradiction, the reason you can copy the musical scenes closely and not run into this problem is precisely because they have songs! Music can instantly set the mood, and when the songs are playing the audience is engaged via the music so they remain immersed in your film as long as you don't murder their beloved songs. Particularly in the case of such classic songs, most folks are probably hoping you DON'T change too much.

 

Thus, instead of making some changes to the scenes between the songs and keeping the song numbers similar... they instead opted to make the intermittent scenes exactly the same while making drastic changes to some of the classic songs. IMO this was a serious mistake and should have been the other way around. They compound this by cutting short the one new part they DID add... namely Beyoncé's new song number. Again, I think it should have been a full length song number to inject some novelty into the film. Just for a contrast, whatever you may think of the live-action Aladdin remake and the new song Speechless from that film, they did give it a full 2+ minute scene so that it had enough time on screen for the audience to give it a chance. Heck, one of the criticisms I heard was that they literally stopped the movie so that they could highlight that song! That's a fair criticism, but the point is the film spent time to give the song a fair chance, and from the word of mouth for that movie it appears to have worked!

 

All-in-all, The Lion King lacks any big defining moments/scenes that you can point to and say "Wow that was awesome!", and IMO it is the blatant copies of classic scenes that is the primary cause of that. Couple that with the hardcore changes to some of the classic songs and that's a recipe for disaster. A couple of the classic songs in the beginning are faithfully recreated and will get you nostalgic, but not to the point where you will be awed like the first time you heard them. Beyoncé's new song is cut down so much that just when you think you might get a new epic song to add to the Disney canon, they pull the rug out from under you. Much has been said of the lack of emotions conveyed by the realistic animals. I wasn't bothered too much by it during most of the film, except during very emotional scenes (e.g Mufasa's death) where the limitations were really highlighted. Ultimately, this new Lion King is more of a whimper than a roar.

 

6/10

C

Edited July 19, 2019 by AndyChrono

[That One Girl]

.

Edited March 2, 2022 by That One Guy

[YM!]

30 minutes ago, That One Guy said:

Soulless garbage.  The only positives I have are that it’s technically impressive and some of the voice performances are good, but that doesn’t matter when it looked better visually in the original and most of the performances in the original were better.

Is it worse than BATB 2017?

[The Panda]

2 hours ago, YourMother the Edgelord said:

Is it worse than BATB 2017?

Eh about on par with it and Aladdin.  

 

The Lion King is the most technically impressive of the three, yet also the least interesting.

[Darth Lehnsherr]

Mufasa's death has got to be one of the most unintentional funny moments of this year. They really botched that death just from a visual standpoint. 

[Alpha]

11 hours ago, Darth Lehnsherr said:

Mufasa's death has got to be one of the most unintentional funny moments of this year. They really botched that death just from a visual standpoint. 

Haven’t seen it yet but doesn’t Scar basically just haphazardly shove Mufasa off the cliff in this version? At least that’s what I’ve heard.

[YM!]

BATB made me angry, this made me depressed though it is the worst live action remake? Let’s find out and let’s start my rant:

 

Pros:

- Visually impressive at a lot of shots as it looks lifelike, some of the emotions aren’t uncanny and the first five minutes are the best part

- Most of the voice acting was pretty good. Eichner and Rogen kill it as Timon and Pumbaa and now I want a spin-off of the two. Ejifior does solid work with Scar and Jones with Mufasa as does McCracy and Joseph as Young Simba and Nala. Woodard is strong as Sarabi and Key and Andre has some fun moments as the hyenas

- The songs are all (except Be Prepared)

- The third act was fun.

 

Cons:

- Aside from butchering Be Prepared, the musical choreography sucks. The fact that they went realistic hurt this a lot.

- It’s shot for shot, like literally a good 85% of the script is from the original and you know the animators and writers from the original got shafted. They’re some changes that don’t work because they refuse to expand on them for nostalgia like the lion/hyena dynamic or Shenzi being more “intimidating” in exchange for being more dull. Aladdin may pale to the original and is mostly copy paste but the director added his own flair to alleviate that along with cast chemistry. BATB at least tried a change, this one refused to. The worst part is due to them refusing to go akin to the animated form is missing, like Rafiki’s speech or the badass Be Prepared are cut. If you’re going to be copy paste at least go all out.

- The rest of the voice acting not so much. Shenzi wasn’t good, as a Glover stan, it pains me that Simba was somewhat mediocre, Beyoncé is a mixed bag and Kani doesn’t bring it for Rafiki.

- The visuals were also awkward at times most noticeable Mufasa’s death scene as the limitations of photorealistic animation inhibits them from showing emotion. Don’t get me wrong there’s a few scenes that show it strong but others either fall flat or are forgetable.

 

My little cousin enjoyed it more than the original due to it looking real and I’m glad he at least enjoyed it. For me though, it made me sad that this will likely be the future of big blockbusters as this was the first time for Disney in a while felt lazy. It’s definitely not the worst Disney remake nor is it not a passable film.

 

D+/C- 

Edited July 21, 2019 by YourMother the Edgelord

[filmlover]

This was...fine? Yeah, I'll go with fine. Despite being very faithful in recreating the Disney classic in live-action, it's lacking a lot of the power and overall epic scope that the earlier movie did. Don't get me wrong, this is flawless from a tech standpoint. The CGI on the animals is so impressive that if you turned the sound off at times, you would think you were watching a nature documentary. And it's still very much The Lion King, and therefore works even in an inferior retelling. But the future side-by-side YouTube comparisons between this and the original will completely favor the 1994 movie. Even James Earl Jones' performance here pales compared to his earlier one as Mufasa. The rest of the cast does well in their roles (Donald Glover and Beyoncé make for a solid Simba and Nala, while Chiwetel Ejiofor brings the right level of menace to Scar even if he can't compare to Jeremy Irons' iconic performance in the original), although the real standouts, unsurprisingly, are Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen, who add their own fun spin on the witty duo of Timon and Pumbaa and get all of the movie's laughs. I felt the same way about this as I did about the live-action Dumbo remake earlier this year. It's easier to translate animal feelings through the lens of animation, I guess. But this version does more than enough right that it's still definitely worth checking out. B-

[cannastop]

From the first shot, this felt wrong.

 

Every change made this movie more artless.

 

Also why the hell were there other speaking roles in the oasis where Timon and Pumbaa live? That ruins their outcast cred, and it looks like it's ripping off Jon Favreau's The Jungle Book.

[cannastop]

On 7/20/2019 at 8:46 PM, Alpha said:

Haven’t seen it yet but doesn’t Scar basically just haphazardly shove Mufasa off the cliff in this version? At least that’s what I’ve heard.

Not really, in my opinion.

[cannastop]

On 7/20/2019 at 9:29 AM, Darth Lehnsherr said:

Mufasa's death has got to be one of the most unintentional funny moments of this year. They really botched that death just from a visual standpoint. 

The whole fucking movie was botched from a visual standpoint. Had to make the most boring environment ever.

[cannastop]

On 7/18/2019 at 8:50 AM, chasmmi said:

As in I think  James Earl Jones literally had the exact same lines as first time around. 

Nah they messed up his lines when he's in the clouds.

[Cap]

The Beauty and the Beast reference was HILARIOUS.  That was very good. 

 

The rest is basically what ever else has said. I spent a lot of time thinking about how awesome this VFX will look in an MCU film.

[Webslinger]

If there’s anything to be said about the remake of Disney’s animated classic The Lion King, it’s that this new version looks gorgeous and has some truly eye-popping visual effects. The photorealistic character animation is astonishing, arguably even surpassing the likes of The Jungle Book, Life of Pi, and the most recent Planet of the Apes movies in terms of making animated animals look real. That being said, once a viewer disregards the technological bells and whistles, this remake is just a faint echo of its source material. The narrative is slavish in its faithfulness to that of the original film, but fails to recapture its energy and power. Much like this summer’s live action remake of Aladdin, it feels like an oddly inert re-telling that pays plenty of homage and follows the same story beats, yet proves incapable of matching the impact of the original on any level. The talented voice ensemble feels like it’s going through the motions, often delivering emotionally-charged lines from the original with such little urgency that they feel less like genuine utterances than obligatory recitations; even Donald Glover and Beyonce Knowles-Carter – two performers with enough presence and charisma to run circles around original voice actors Matthew Broderick and Moira Kelly – sound nondescript and uninterested, as if they were both performing a vanilla cover for kicks and giggles. Chiwetel Ejiofor feels miscast as Scar, who himself feels like a much less imposing villain this time around; the animation style and Jeremy Irons’s inspired voice work in the original made Scar feel like a true threat and sold his manipulative qualities in a believable fashion, but none of those qualities come through in Ejiofor's curiously restrained, less menacing approach. (There’s also a tweak to Scar’s relationship with the hyenas that makes no sense; in trying to offer up an explicit explanation for why the hyenas choose to follow Scar, the filmmakers just make all the faith they place in him feel even more questionable that it ever was before.) Even the arrival of Timon and Pumbaa as comic relief does little to alleviate the boredom, as Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen – game as they are in their performances – can’t hold a candle to the timing and chemistry that Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella shared. The musical numbers also lack pizazz and slow the lyrics down to a distracting degree; in fact, the simple process of slowing down the pace is responsible for most of the 30-minute difference between the running time of this film and the original, and the few new additions to the narrative play like deleted scenes that have little to no impact over the plot nor the themes. I’ll confess to getting goosebumps at the stunning re-creation of the animated film’s iconic opening “Circle of Life” sequence – it’s seriously stunning and clearly took a tremendous amount of effort to pull off – but beyond a select few awe-inspiring moments, this Lion King is a pale imitation of its namesake; it looks great, but lacks the soul that makes the original an enduring cross-generation classic.

 

C

 

Stray Thoughts:

- I actually saw this remake mere feet away from where I saw the original 25 years ago. (It might even have been 25 years to the day - I don't know the exact date I saw the original, but I know it was a Saturday during the summer of 1994 and it was a few weeks after the opening, and the 23rd of July was a Saturday that year, so...) I was super tempted to get up and dance in the aisle when Simba decided to run back to Pride Rock, but even with this place now being a totally renovated pub cinema, I'm guessing the rest of the audience would be less forgiving of a dancing 28-year-old than a dancing 3-year-old.

 

- Honestly, Rowan Atkinson as an animated Zazu felt more like John Oliver than the real John Oliver does here. Much like Alan Tudyk in Aladdin, Oliver is also regrettably saddled with a far more boring, less comedic role in this remake. I was disappointed with how little he had to do, and I fully expect plenty of self-deprecating jokes about it on future episodes of Last Week Tonight.

 

- I'm excited for the inevitable deluge of YouTube video essays explaining in great detail why pseudo-live action approach - while impressive on its own technological merit - doesn't work as well as the animation in the original, or why drawing out the narrative and adding a few unnecessary detail undercuts the power the simpler, more streamlined original script already had.

[BK007]

My question is why did any of you expect any different? 

 

Why did you even pay to support this crap given that Aladdin, BATB, Maleficent and Alice in Wonderland already exist? 

 

*shakes head*

[cannastop]

10 hours ago, BK007 said:

My question is why did any of you expect any different? 

 

Why did you even pay to support this crap given that Aladdin, BATB, Maleficent and Alice in Wonderland already exist? 

 

*shakes head*

To be fair, I didn't see any of those movies, save for a little bit of Alice in Wonderland.

[cannastop]

Someone on twitter said they made Scar into an incel lol.