Review of The Lion King (1994) by Holly M — 30 Apr 2014

It's been more than a decade since I watched this for the last time. I was a bit afraid that it might not be the masterpiece I remembered. I was a little nit-picking, but The Lion King is still the masterpiece we all remember. What makes this movie an epic? Of course, its size. The ideas and ambitions of this movie are huge in every department: animation, music, characters, story, (based obviously on Hamlet and Macbeth by Shakespeare) characters, songs, etc. It's probably the greatest animated epic. Much like Lawrence of Arabia is considered the epic of epics, we can considerate The Lion King the animated epic of animated epics...if there's any other.

The movie also has Disney's charm all over it, so of course, you can feel the magic on every shot of the movie, and of course, makes it entertaining. Other than magic, the movie manages all kinds of emotions. The opening scenes helps the epic feeling of the movie, the happy scenes are charming, the death of Mufasa delivers the sadness it should, the warm scenes deliver calmed moments; just every emotion into a film with oddly enough no humans what so ever. This is so far my favorite Disney film in classic animation, it's simply an epic movie, and I like epics...plus it was released on my year of birth, so there's a strange connection, and it was Disney's Renaissance climax, before he went down and down with their movies...did I tell you the next one was Pocahontas? ugh. The Lion King, a timeless emotional, depth and epic animated movie.

Hakuna Matata!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS REVIEWS PART 11: The Lion King (1994).