The Lion King
I think we all have seen The Lion King as a child. Whether you want to admit it or not, its a Disney classic. The songs and lines from the film are memorable and its up there with Disney animated ventures from their best decade. I question the need for every Disney live action film coming out but I’ve been surprised. Lion King was a strange case. Its got a great voice cast for sure but it looks like a feature length National Geographic documentary. I heard bad things about this going in. I’d say its decent. It follows the original work very, very, closely and I think it takes a lot of the if it ain’t broke don’t fix it philosophy.
The film takes place in the animal kingdom, where the king lion Mufasa has recently had a son named Simba. This young cub is destined to be the new leader at the behest of his scheming and jealous uncle Scar. Simba quickly learns the dangers of being next in line for the throne and then has to learn how to grow up and be a leader to his kingdom. The film interestingly brought back James Earl Jones as the voice of Mufasa. The film has a lot of voice talent like Donald Glover, Beyonce, and Seth Rogen.
The visual and realistic nature of the animals is fairly amazing. The animals look so real and the recreation of the original animated features scenes is pretty remarkable. I thought visually its as good as can be. The film could have used some originality for sure but I wasn’t so bothered with a remake that closely follows the source material. I haven’t seen the animated version in a long time so recalling moments through a new film wasn’t so bad. I felt some parts were very rushed though and not done as well as the original.
The score and recreation of the classic songs was nice regardless. I know there will be a lot of complaining and it won’t please everyone but I felt like it was a solid film and a good enough watch. Not very many complaints. I don’t think it possesses all of the magic of the original but its still a faithful effort and I really mean you can see the effort there visually but maybe not so much so creatively. Pretty sure this will be a cash cow regardless for Disney as it was pretty hyped.
7/10
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