Review of The Lion King (2019) by Linttaflamingo — 12 Oct 2019

In 2015 Disney released a live-action remake of Cinderella. I found it to be pretty enjoyable and well made for what it was, but it was basically a shot for shot copy paste of the original one, and with a distracting Robb Stark showing Cinderella a tiny garden room with a bigass swing for some reason. Naturally that was an immediate sign that Cinderella wouldn't be the only remake of a beloved original; Disney would definitely make sure we get a dozen or two of these.

Lion King is already the third remake in 2019 and not the last one either, so at this point Disney has basically started spamming us in the face with these films, because aside from the technical side, it's not exactly hard to take a movie and make an identical one again. All the story work has already been done for them... by them???

I've seen it twice now, and I've got like nothing to say that you wouldn't get by just watching the OG one. It's Lion King again but without the colors and without the animated charm, but it does have great covers of the classic songs I guess. I didn't really feel the extra 30 minutes anywhere except in some unnecessary filler scenes. There was an extra song too for Scar that was alright I guess. He didn't really sing, he just kinda talked but in a half singing way. Some of the extra minutes probably came in since the movie treats you like you're a f*cking dumbass and shows you flashbacks of scenes that literally happen in the same movie, just so you would understand that scene even though it doesn't exactly require much.

This film gives you exactly what you can expect. Cinematic karaoke. Childish Gambino and Beyonce sing very well despite Beyonce's random show offs that sounded a lot more like Beyonce than a singing lion. But I mean she can sing and it's not like it's gonna ruin the original Lion King all of a sudden so whatever. There's nothing really wrong with the songs and they're most likely the thing you're waiting for constantly since the story parts especially during the second act are so f*cking boring. Not even Pumba could save the second act by sh*tting himself constantly since they just used lazy stock sounds and he was kinda just pushed to the back. The second act even has a goofy scene of a giraffe eating Simba's hair and then sh*tting it out so a cockroach can roll the s*it around until it breaks and the hair just so happens to be taken to Rafiki by ants. Sure it ends up having a meaning to the plot in the end but it's goofy as Goofy. Rafiki himself is still good though. He's barely in the film but he's voiced pretty well. All of the voice acting is pretty good in the end. James Earl Jones sounds fantastic once again and Childish Gambino is pretty good. Beyonce wasn't that great. It just sounded like Beyonce in the studio.

The CGI, just like in the other Disney remake movies, is amazing and the film basically looks completely real. Although that was never the point to be honest. The animated movie had a ton of charm because it was NOT realistic. The animals moved and smiled and laughed in an exaggerated way and that's why it was easy to care for them and the scenes were super entertaining. Here everything looks braindead because real lions can't even smile. Even the Mufasa death which is the most emotional scene in the original movie is kind of hilarious here. Scar decides to bltch slap Mufasa instead of throwing him down the cliff and the shot of Simba screaming looks really off.

This whole joint is just really goofy to watch and ended up being more comical than emotional. But sure, some scenes like Mufasa talking to Simba from the sky was still really powerful because you can't really f*ck that up, can you? One thing I absolutely have to give credit about though is the fact that Hollywood resisted the urge to put more feminist trash in this movie.