The Lion King 2019 Review

The 90s animated features from Disney are mostly loved. With The Lion King, it's either very close or at the top for many. I'm going to say that most of these live action remakes don't interest me. In fact, Aladdin was the first one I saw of what the company is doing. Lion King made me curious, especially with the shelling it is getting from critics. I don't know what they are looking for. An exact copy of the animated one, which turned 25 back in June? I think there's enough merits to make it about close, if not, equal with it's cartoon counterpart.

Unlike Aladdin, the plot for The Lion King is mainly intact. The many animals of Africa witness young Simba, the son of Mufasa and Sarabi. Only Scar is angry about his nephew as he would take over as king instead of himself. So he plots to find ways to kill Simba and Mufasa and the former has these many adventures, both good and bad. For the most part, they don't deviate from the animated film. There are a couple parts they removed, and some of it wasn't necessary to have. One thing I'll give credit is their ability to address a couple plot points that weren't seen in the original.

Another thing is that it is very lively. You don't just see the main three hyenas in their scenes. You see a clan of them an it makes for some intense scenes. Same with Timon and Pumbaa. They live in a world populated with many others who live with no worries. But the attempt to give every character a bit of screen time and their chance to shine in scenes is very nice. It is a bit light on comic relief, surprisingly. A nice thing is Zazu the dodo not being a victim of pain and not being a hostage. The original had a few dark moments, but it isn't too bad with this one. This shouldn't scare kids.

As far as voice acting, they got it nailed down well with the characters. Given the CGI with doing this stuff, it looks believable for the most part. A lot of the shots in the movie really capture the essence of Africa in the good and bad times. The songs are left mostly intact. Be Prepared only has a small minute of it, but it is good that they didn't completely omit it from the film as it is one of the original's most beloved songs despite the good and bad parts in it. It's not a long movie, but not short either. Ignoring trailers, this is a good hour 40, hour 45 before the credits are seen.

I don't know what critics were expecting. As far as The Lion King goes, you should be checking this out in the theater. As I said, there's enough to make it close or at leas equal with the original. However, I do think Disney should calm down a little bit with these live action remakes. Too many in a year and it will hurt them a lot more than they realize.

Score: 8 out of 10