As we know by now Disney has put out some of the greatest animated films in cinema history. From Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Raya and the Last Dragon, Disney continues to prove why they are the most dominating company when it comes to animation. Live Action films however for Disney can be a rollercoaster ride. Since the early 90’s and more recently since the 2010’s, Disney has decided to make live action remakes for some of their biggest animated films ever. Some of them are big hits like Beauty and the Beast and then you have piece of shit films like Mulan, yeah the dust has yet to settle for me for this film. However out of all the Live Action “Remakes” Disney has had to offer to us one in particular was literally split down the middle with critics and fans. Now I made a poll on my Instagram between two films for what you guys wanted me to review between Aladdin (2019) and this film and I was really hoping you all picked Aladdin since I have new opinions on the film but you assholes decided to make me review the live action remake of The Lion King, a film that I defended when it came out and yes I saw the flaws of the film but because it’s a live action film of my favorite animated film of all time I literally defended it, but you all voted for The Lion King and now I need to give a fair review for it. Now to be fair I will still review Aladdin in the future but I guess for now I’m stuck reviewing a film that I need to not defend fully anymore and literally rip the band aid and review properly. Once again thank you all for making me regret putting a poll up and let’s just get right into this review before I change my mind. So I guess without any huge introduction, here are my thoughts about Disney’s live action The Lion King.
*SPOILER WARNING AHEAD*
Now I thought hard about how I am going to review this film considering pretty much it’s literally the same as the original animated film but with some new lines, jokes, a new song and it’s in CGI. So I will give a small highlighted review of the film’s story, in case you lived under a rock since 1994 and have no clue on what THE LION KING is, but I will take this time in this review to talk about the new additions this film had and also talk about what I liked and didn’t like but most of all talk about what other’s thought and voice my opinion about it. Seriously I hate you all for putting me into this corner and making me review this film. I can’t even review the original film because I will legit say it’s a perfectly animated film, 5 out of 5 stars, simple as that to be honest. But we aren’t here to review the greatest animated film ever; we are here to review its “live action remake”.
2019’s The Lion King was directed by Jon Favreau, who has dipped his toes in making live action Disney films. Prior to making this film Favreau directed a different film about talking animals back in 2016. It did pretty well in the box office and with critics. That film was The Jungle Book. Farvaeu wanted to use the Broadway’s adaption for this film when it came to remaking the plot and while somewhat of the plot looks to be inspired by it; it still seems to be the same original animated film from beginning to end. We will go more into detail later. The cast for this film is pretty huge and very diverse. The film stars Donald Glover (Simba), Beyonce Knowles-Carter (Nala), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Scar), Billy Eichner (Timon), Seth Rogen (Pumba), Alfre Woodward (Sarabi), John Oliver (Zazu), John Kani (Rafiki), JD McCray (young Simba), Shahadi Wright Joseph (young Nala), Florence Kasumba (Shenzi), Keegan-Michael Key (Kamari), Eric Andre (Azizi) and James Earl Jones (Mufasa). Now first of all I will say this in this section of the review but I think every choice for who played who in this film was a smart choice. Were they all delivered perfectly in the end of the performance, no, but for what we got it was pretty decent. I will talk about some of these in a bit. Let’s move on to the film’s story and talk about that.
Oh yeah its legit the same story as the original film from 1994. Now in all fairness and this should had been brought up in the ideas of giving The Lion King a “live action remake”, but there is no way you can literally remake this movie without fans of the original film getting triggered and butthurt and it’s literally impossible to remake a film that is literally inspired and re-worked around Shakespeare’s Hamlet. If they would had changed up the story a bit or the whole story in general then that would have been something but knowing how Disney fans are, including myself, this film would had been judged hard. So instead Disney took the cash grab approach and literally copied and pasted the film into what they like to call a live action remake. Now the only live action scene in this film is literally the opening shot before “Circle of Life”. Everything else in this film is CGI. But let’s get to the story of the film and pretty much spoil the whole film in just a few sentences. Again if you never watched this film at this point then you literally have to go to a mental hospital because you are psychotic. The Lion King and the live action Lion King is about a young lion named Simba who is next in line to become King of the Pride Lands. His uncle Scar however is angered by this because he was the true next in line, so he comes up with a plot to kill his brother aka the king, Mufasa and Simba. Simba is in trouble as he is stuck in a middle of a wildebeest stampede, thanks to his Uncle Scar and his hyena army. Mufasa saves Simba but gets trapped in the stampede and thankfully escapes and climbs up a rocky mountain. Scar then grabs Mufasa with his claws and tells him “Long live the King” and throws his bother off the mountain into the wildebeest stampede. Simba believes it was his fault and runs away. Scar becomes the new King because everyone at Pride Rock believes Simba is also dead. Simba is instead in the dessert and he meets a meerkat and a warthog, aka Timon and Pumba. They take him in and teach him about their motto, Hakuna Matata and time goes by and Simba becomes older. The Pride Lands are in trouble as there is no more food or water left. Nala goes looking for Simba and when she finds him he doesn’t want to be King. Simba then has an encounter with a baboon named Rafiki and he shows him that his father is alive as he lives in Simba. Thanks to a pep talk from Mufasa from the heavens Simba decides to go back home and take his rightful place as King. He battles Scar with the help from Nala, Timon and Pumba and the rest of the lions in the Pride Lands. Simba doesn’t kill Scar but Scar is killed by his hyena army. Simba then takes his place as King and they all lived happily ever after.
The fact that I literally had to write all of that is sad but how else do you talk about this movie without talking about the original film. Anyway I want to talk what I like first about the film because I still do really like this film. It’s not perfect or one hundred percent great but I did enjoy the film. First of all I love the fact that we got James Earl Jones reprising his role as Mufasa. There is no other actor that can voice this character as great as Darth Vader did so it felt great to hear his voice in the role. Many critics can agree with me on this one but Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen as Timon and Pumba is honestly comedy gold. New lines were added for the characters while they also used existing lines from the original and I have to say I really enjoyed Eichner’s and Rogen’s voice work as Timon and Pumba. Was it anywhere close to Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella, no, but I mean they did an excellent job and perfectly fit the role. Eichner is pretty out there in real life as he is a comedian who can be very sarcastic and his voice and characteristics match Timon’s characteristics pretty well. And I mean of all the actors who could have gotten the part of Pumba, Seth Rogen might be the most perfect choice. He has this voice that is raspy like the original Pumba and he adds in his comedic charm into the role. Now while I am very upset that they took out the Hula scene, I laughed pretty hard at what replaced it. They replaced the Hula scene with Timon singing the beginning of Beauty and the Beast’s “Be Our Guest” and I’m not going to lie but I loved it. I also really enjoyed this version of Scar as well as while not everything about this version of the character was incredible I still think Ejiofor’s performance was pretty awesome. Scar felt more sadistic and looked haunting in this film as the delivery from Ejiofor was pretty intense in most scenes. Still wish we had Be Prepared and not a half ass version of it but more on that later. The visual effects in this film however is stunning as all the characters look like their animal counterparts and not just that but the settings look amazing from the pride lands to the elephant bone yard, everything about this film visually looks stunning and incredible.
Another thing I did like that was something new added to the film was more screen time for Nala. I wouldn’t say it was a huge amount of screen time but they added in a story arc for her character as we got to see her side of the film when Scar was King of Pride Rock. The original animated film didn’t use Nala enough in my opinion as she was mainly known as Simba’s love interest/best friend and partly the voice of reason. In this film she is kind of the same thing but used a bit more properly as we see her character go more in depth in the film. So kudos for Disney for using Nala in a better way for this film as they really made her a more likeable character. Now that’s not saying that I didn’t like her character in the original animated film. I just felt like there is more to her character that could have been seen or used and this remake gave us a Nala that I can say was used in a more proper way.
The final positive new things I love about this film are the additional songs added into the film. While the song “A Lion Sleeps Tonight” is technically in the original film it was only used for a short period of time. However in this film we got a 2 plus minute long musical number where Timon, Pumba and the rest of their pals sing the song and I have to say it was very cute and catchy. Another new song that was added was the song “Spirit”, performed by Beyonce. Spirit is an amazing song that adds depth to the story but also it is a very inspirational song. Then we have a song that plays in the end credits that shouldn’t really count for this section of the review but fuck it I love it and it’s literally a bop. So Elton John returns in the end credits although this time he’s not singing the beloved Disney classic “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”. Instead a new song was created for the film by Elton John himself and it is called “Never Too Late”. It’s another inspirational song that pretty much is telling you to never give up. I think each new song added in were very great, not all of them added into the movie’s story but still they were some cool additions.
Okay it’s time to talk about the elephant in the room and I know this is the part you all have been waiting for as this film might be getting a lot of positivity but unfortunately all good things must come to an end. While I truly love the film I need to be fair somewhat and be honest with you, it’s literally just a copy and paste, cash grab, film. Just like 90% of every Disney live action remake, this movie too is literally just the same film with new additional scenes and lines added in with tweaks to either characteristics or to the story. Like they technically still had 3 main hyenas but Shenzi was the main one we focused on and instead of Ed and Banzai Disney instead created two new hyena characters that really did nothing for the story other than be comic relief, but in a bad way. Also I mentioned it earlier about Be Prepared but the song was done in a half ass way and in my opinion if you were going to have the song in the film and do it in a half ass way then just don’t do it at all. It could have been used as a perfect opportunity to make it like a speech from Scar and having a musical score of the original song in the background. In fact now thinking about it that would have been so much better. Another thing that I didn’t care for but other people really had a problem with was the emotionless animals and I understand why they were bothered by this problem. This was honestly a main problem for people as many found certain scenes where the characters should show some sort of emotion like sadness or a smile and in the end the characters showed no emotions on their faces. Now on one hand this film is a live action/CGI adaptation of the film and most animals don’t show emotions like the original animated film had them show like smiling big. But on the other hand we have seen many films put emotions onto these animal characters and it looks good on screen so it should had been something added into the film. Like I can agree with it in certain extent because seeing Simba trying to wake up Mufasa after the stampede scene and being sad was sad when I first saw it in theaters but I mean after paying close attention to detail the film editors should of added way more emotion to the character and show tears or show how sad Simba truly was as his father is dead. Other times like when a character is happy we should had seen the character smiling in a certain extent. I understand why Disney didn’t do it this way as they wanted to make the animal characters look real and in real life most of the animals, for example the Lions, don’t really show emotions like they did in the animated film.
Okay I’m literally just slowly pulling small details in the film I didn’t like instead of just ripping this band-aid so here we go. Disney literally didn’t need to remake this movie and it’s something that a lot of people said. Nothing new was really added in that left a huge impact with the film. But it’s not only that but the film had a lot of problems with Disney fans from the emotionless animals to half of the scenes feeling rushed. That’s another thing that really bothered me and I kind of want to talk about. There are certain times in the film where a scene feels like it’s taking too long and other times a certain scene feels rushed. The opening scene of the film is probably the only scene in the film that was perfectly timed. The scene where Mufasa and Simba are looking over the Pride Lands felt kind of rushed and the same can be said with the Be Prepared scene. That scene should have really showed Scar’s sadistic ways and it sort of did but not truly enough. Hell even the Stampede scene bothered me a bit as it felt like it was too long or not enough in certain times of the scene. Disney took either some things out of certain scenes for time or they added in certain things for the scenes and for this movie it didn’t work well and made the scenes feel bland.
I think I’m being too nice to Disney right now as I literally said before that they didn’t need to make this film and honestly they didn’t. Nobody I know truly liked this movie like I did. I only really like this film cause it’s “The Lion King” aka my favorite animated film ever but in live action/CGI form and that alone is a poor excuse of why I like the film. Sure I liked Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen as Timon and Pumba and they’re new additional dialogue and I did like the new songs plus the new slightly additional scenes with Nala but other than that, nothing new in this film truly made say this film was great. Fuck this one going to hurt but if I could be truly honest, this isn’t a good film and it took me a while to finally say that. Don’t get me wrong I don’t hate the film like I hate the Mulan remake but I don’t care for the film like I do for and this might shock some people and I will review it in the future but Aladdin. Aladdin truly felt like a remake and while it had the same copy and paste the story/film, a lot was added into the film’s plot that truly impacted the film in a great way. I will talk more about it once I review it but for Lion King this film didn’t add in anything new that can make this film feel sort of new and a remake. I love that Jon Farvaeu was trying to make the film seem real with the stunning visual effects but in the end he missed the point of what this film truly needed, a remake. And even then this film didn’t need to be remade as it’s probably the one true Disney film that you kind of can’t remake. The original film is based off of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and had Disney actually remade the film properly then it would be a different film. A lot would have to be changed in the film from the characters to taking out the songs entirely. But the problem with doing that is that Disney would not only have to create a brand new story with using the same characters but they would have to find a way to reach our attentions for the film, something they did an incredible job with the original film, but in this case no Disney fan would want them to destroy a beloved iconic film and remake it in a way that could either be terrible or possibly even destroy the legacy of the original film. And knowing Disney’s track record with making “live action remakes of their popular animated films” they instead made it a cash grab copy and paste film and made billions on the film in the box office regardless of what critics and fans thought of the film. For me had they truly remade this film it would have been in a territory of a terrible film, sort of like 2020’s Mulan, hence why I think and believe that this movie didn’t need to be remade at all.
I know you were all waiting for me to go off on Disney like I did in my 2020 Mulan review but as a I said before I don’t hate this movie really. I extremely hated the Mulan remake and you can read the reasons why in my review for it, but for this film I didn’t hate the film but more didn’t like it as much as I thought I truly did. I will still watch it from time to time but most of the time if I truly want to watch The Lion King I will just watch my favorite animated film of all time. I couldn’t really go off on this film like I did with Mulan, even if I tried I just couldn’t. This review is more for me to be honest with myself about my true feelings for this remake and even so this film has technically been remade but in a better way. It’s called The Lion King on Broadway and while that is not a remake of the film, more better its a re-telling of the film but as a full on musical, it did a better job of being a remake than this film. This review felt pretty basic and one-dimensional, but so was this remake. Everything in this film lost some of its spark that only the original film has and it’s sad to say that this film had no true spark or felt pretty one-dimensional. If there was any movie that Disney shouldn’t have remade and not just make because they want to fill their billion dollar company up with more money in their pockets, this movie should had been that movie that they left alone. There are other movies that could have and should be remade in live action form. Films like Treasure Planet or Atlantis: The Lost Empire could have used a true live action form as these films could have added in more to the original films story but also it could of have given the original films a second chance to the general audience. But instead Disney decided let’s make more money and re-tell our most iconic film ever and make money so we can build a new land in Epcot or something. I love you Disney, I truly do, but you have better ways you can make money for your parks or for your company and remaking The Lion King shouldn’t have been the way you did it. Remaking Lion King in general should have never happened and I have looked back in my past posts and seeing how excited I was to see this film and at the time I was truly excited because it’s my favorite animated film in live action form and I fell under the spell from Disney where they made me spend my money to see this film in theaters. But looking back at it and thinking about it now I was wrong and I’m accepting that this film isn’t that great. Again it’s not terrible as it’s the same film but it’s not great because nothing new was added in that can truly make it a remake.
Final Review: 3.3 out of 5 Stars, 60 out of 100%
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