"The Lion King" Review

I'll admit up front, I had no desire to see the new Lion King movie at first. I'm as tired from these endless Disney remakes as anyone else these days, and I actually have skipped seeing most of them. However, two major things spontaneously came together this past Tuesday that convinced me to go see The Lion King:

1) I had no plans and remembered that movie theaters give discounts on Tuesdays

2) I'd heard so many scathing reviews for this film — probably more than the last three Disney remakes combined — that I decided I had to see if it was really that bad

Now that I have seen it, I'm willing to say that the Lion King remake didn't quite live down to my expectations. It's not horrible, but it doesn't remotely hold a candle to the 1994 original.

There are some improvements to the story in this new version. Simba's a lot less bratty as a cub, and things like the way Rafiki figures out that Simba's still alive and the way the lionesses figure out that Scar killed Mufasa are handled a lot better this time around. I also like that this version removes that part where Scar knocks out Zazu during the stampede to keep him from going for help. In the remake, Scar tells Zazu to go get help because that will look way less suspicious and he knows that Zazu won't be back with help in time anyway. They're good updates.

At the same time though, the new version makes a lot of changes that hurt the story. It tries to give Scar more backstory than the original by implying that he once fought Mufasa for the right to marry Sarabi, which was how he got his scar. The problem with this is that it now gives Scar a history of having challenged Mufasa in the past. That just makes Mufasa look foolish for keeping him around in this version since he can't give his brother that benefit of a doubt that he had in the original film.

We also get a new scene where Nala escapes from Pride Rock during Scar's reign to find help. This lessens the suspense of the later scene where she attacks Timon and Pumbaa because now we know who that lioness is and we have reason to think that she won't go through with killing them. Scar only introduces himself to the hyenas after Mufasa rescues Simba and Nala from them, which makes his alliance with them less compelling, and there's just a ton of extra dialogue thrown in all over the place that adds nothing and throws off the pacing of a lot of scenes.

As far as the voice-acting goes, there's not a lot to say. It wasn't as bad as a lot of reviews have made it out to be, but it still pales in comparison to the original. This is most evident in James Earl Jones, who for some reason sounds a lot less intense in this version despite reprising his role of Mufasa. Most of the actors sound like they're either going through the motions or (in the case of Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen as Timon and Pumbaa) ad-libbing so much that it sucks all the meaning out of the original dialogue. The only really noteworthy performance is Chiwetel Ejiofor as Scar, who's allowed to give a theatrically villainous line delivery every now and then.

Also, John Oliver probably laughed all the way to the bank when he got cast as Zazu, because he's joked before about how much he looks like the original version of the character.

Music-wise, the movie's all over the place in quality. The orchestral score is pretty good, but the new versions of the songs are hit or miss. I think the only song to really improve is "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," which uses a wide variety of animals with a wide variety of vocal ranges to give a pretty neat doo-wop rendition. The worst song revamp is "Be Prepared," which is only half as long now and has Scar mostly talk-singing new lyrics that fit better with the hyenas' less dim-witted depictions in this version.

And I'm just going to come right out and say this: the hyenas in the remake are a huge downgrade. Shenzi gets the best treatment out of the main three, since she keeps her original name and her role as the leader, but she's all menace and no personality in this version. Banzai and Ed technically aren't even in the remake; instead we get two other recurring hyenas in the clan named Kamari and Azizi who barely interact with Shenzi.

Apparently, the reason for these changes was because director Jon Favreau felt the hyenas in the original film wouldn't mesh with the more realistic feel that he wanted the remake to have. He wanted their characters to be dangerous instead of funny in his version.

First of all, the hyenas in the original weren't just funny. They were also dangerous, and the way they easily switched back and forth between those two gears made them even more intimidating. They were unpredictable because their silly attitudes made it easy to underestimate them, and that was the whole point of Scar's downfall.

Second of all, the hyenas in the remake are still used as comic relief. It's just that instead of having all three of them go back and forth between serious and funny, we get one who's always serious and two who handle all the comedy. But because it isn't realistic for the comic hyenas to make cartoonish gestures or anachronistic jokes, there's not a lot of funny things they can actually do or say. As a result, we get a villain "trio" where two thirds of them fall flat.

And that's the remake's biggest problem: its super realistic approach to everything. Most reviews have rightly pointed out how the animals' lack of humanlike facial expressions weakens the emotional impact of everything, but there's so much more to it than that. Everything is presented like a nature documentary, so nothing fantastical or cinematic is ever shown onscreen. Instead of a vibrant color and style change when Simba's imagination kicks in during "I Just Can't Wait To Be King," we get a regular looking scene with just more animals in it. Instead of towering skeletons and hellish red and green geysers in the Elephant Graveyard, we just get lots of brown rocks. Instead of seeing Mufasa's face in the clouds when he talks to Simba from the afterlife, we just see normal storm clouds that sometimes look a bit like a lion for a split second when the lightning flashes just right.

Even scenes taken straight from the original film like the "Circle Of Life" opening and the wildebeest stampede look smaller in scope because they're presented in a less visually dramatic way. The crazy thing about all of this is that, just like the original film, this version of The Lion King is also entirely animated. I get that they didn't want it to look 100% identical to the original, but there's just no reason why they had to make it look this much less compelling.

Bottom line, the remake of The Lion King is nothing special. It's gorgeous to look at, it fixes a few problems with the original, and it's entertaining enough for kids, but just like all the other recent Disney remakes I've seen, it clearly expects you to already know the story from the original. You're better off just watching that instead.

Long live the king.