The Lion King (2019)

The Lion King (2019)

What was the point of remaking the original film if you barely do anything new about it?

Genre:	Musical Drama
Starring:	Donald Glover Seth Rogen Chiwetel Ejiofor Alfre Woodard Billy Eichner John Kani John Oliver Beyoncé Knowles-Carter James Earl Jones
Cinematography:	Caleb Deschanel
Runtime:	118 minutes
Country:	United States
Language:	English
Budget:	$250–260 million
Franchise:	The Lion King

The Lion King is a 2019 American musical film directed and produced by Jon Favreau, written by Jeff Nathanson, and produced by Walt Disney Pictures. It is a photo-realistic computer-animated remake of Disney's traditionally-animated 1994 film of the same name.

Plot

Simba idolizes his father, King Mufasa, and takes to heart his royal destiny on the plains of Africa. But not everyone in the kingdom celebrates the new cub's arrival. Scar, Mufasa's brother -- and former heir to the throne -- has plans of his own. The battle for Pride Rock is soon ravaged with betrayal, tragedy, and drama, ultimately resulting in Simba's exile. Now, with help from a curious pair of newfound friends, Simba must figure out how to grow up and take back what is rightfully his.

Bad Qualities

False advertising: The film is marketed as a live-action remake, when in reality, it is a photo-realistic computer-animated film. Jon Favreau himself repeatedly claimed that it was live-action, before admitting that every scene is computer-animated except for the opening shot of the sun rising.
Poor voice direction. Even James Earl Jones as Mufasa obviously wasn't trying here, with his death scene having sub-par acting from him.
On the subject of Jones, it was hypocritical that they got him to reprise his role as Mufasa but got rid of all of the other adult voice actors, which was clearly a way to pander to nostalgia for Jones.
The movie is rather pointless, as there are almost zero changes to the overall story at all and it even takes some of the exact same shots from the original film.
- What makes the movie even more pointless is the fact that by the time of its release, the original Lion King franchise was still prominent through The Lion Guard^BTSW.
Several of the changes within the story are pointless, and some scenes in the original film are cut for no discernible reason. For example:
- Rafiki, who played a significant role in guiding Simba, was severely reduced.
- Banzai and Ed had their names changed for some reason, with the only likely reason being to make them Swahili-sounding.
- Timon and Pumbaa have several animal friends, all of whom serve no purpose in the story whatsoever.
- One popular message from the original, "take responsibility for your past", along with the grassland background drop in the same scene in which it appears, has been removed in favor of a lake background drop to "find" Mufasa from there.
The film lacks the charm, depth and emotion that made the original film so memorable and iconic.
The computer-generated imagery for the animals looks amazing and incredibly lifelike, but the issue is that all of them show little-to-no expression of any emotion at all. The reason why the original traditionally-animated film worked is because of the magnificent and intensely expressive animation. None of that is adapted, and thus not shown, in this remake.
- Most of the song sequences suffer from this. The first example is "I Just Can't Wait To Be King", which is mostly Simba and Nala running with no colorful visuals whatsoever. The next examples are "Be Prepared", which is set in a dark area with no smoke or fire whatsoever, and is just Scar climbing to the top of a cliff. Finally, "Hakuna Matata" is just Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa walking while they awkwardly mime the song.
  - Speaking of the songs, they did an orchestra version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" which is a failed attempt of being current with the Internet.
- Additionally, real-life animals can express more emotions than the ones in this movie, which is simply illogical. This is because in comparison, the animal characters featured in every other Disney live-action remake, do express actual emotions, similar to real-life animals, yet the makers seemingly forgot that aspect for this film.
- Scar suffers the most from this, as the realistic approach completely removes the ability to squash-and-stretch Scar's facial proportions to convey his sinister nature and ends up looking like just an ordinary lion with brown fur and a slight scar that aren't intimidating at all.
- The colorful and vibrant color palette from the original film is also completely lost, and as a result, the film looks drab and dull.
- Overall, the film looks rather like a nature documentary than a remake of The Lion King.
Scenes from the original film are pointlessly extended simply to pad out the runtime of this film.
The scene where Mufasa is killed by Scar is worse than in the original, as it is made to look like Scar hit him on the face with his paw instead of brutally tossing him off the cliff. Also, Scar's delivery of his line "Long live the king!" is rather over-the-top and bland compared to in the original.
Plot hole: Scar sends Zazu to get the pride after convincing him that he will help Simba and Mufasa, yet he later convinces the pride that he didn't reach the gorge in time to help Simba and Mufasa. Given that Zazu still visited the pride at Pride Rock to relay information, it is unclear why he didn't realize this and reveal to the pride that Scar was lying.
Some of the members of the cast give very bland performances, particularly Chiwetel Ejiofor, who voiced Scar in the film.

Good Qualities

The updated songs are decent, except for "Be Prepared".
- In particular, the original opening featuring "Circle of Life" returns.
Despite the given flaws, the computer-generated imagery is magnificent and looks incredibly realistic, and all the main characters along with the other animals (including some that were changed in the film) are very accurate-looking to their species.
Timon and Pumbaa are still enjoyable and arguably funnier than in the original film thanks to Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen.
The new version of Mufasa's spirit in the clouds is the only one that this movie does an okay job at, despite the fact that the spirit didn't fully move in the original.
The hyenas, particularly Shenzi, are more powerful, menacing and terrifying than their original counterparts; in particular, Scar's death in this film manages to be very faithful to the original, but also manages to be much more terrifying than the original version, since he fights the hyenas back before being eaten alive and delivering a terrifying scream before dying, something that the original didn't have.
Beautiful scenery.
Zazu is still a tolerable character, and he is arguably a bit less of a Butt-Monkey^LCW than he was in the original.
Some of the cast manages to deliver decent performances, despite some of them being bland.

Reception

Box office

The Lion King opened up at #1 on its opening weekend grossing $191,770,759 domestically. The film earned $543.6 million domestic and $1.1 billion internationally. Overall, it has made $1.65 billion against its $250 to $260 million dollar budget, making it the highest grossing animated film of all time.

Critical response

The Lion King received generally mixed reviews from critics and fans alike, with praise for its visual effects, music, and vocal performances (particularly Rogen and Eichner), but criticism for its lack of originality, and facial emotion on the characters and currently scoring a 53% on Rotten Tomatoes^RWW with a critic consensus that states, "While it can take pride in its visual achievements, The Lion King is a by-the-numbers retelling that lacks the energy and heart that made the original so beloved--though for some fans that may just be enough." while the audience score is currently at 88%, and the film holds a 7.1/10 on IMDb.