Review of The Lion King (2019) by Trineo99 — 21 Jul 2019

First of all, the special effects in this film are outstanding and you can see all of the effort that went into it. All of the animal's act like their actual animal counterparts if you saw them in the wild.

Timon, voiced by Billy Eichner, and Pumbaa, voiced by Seth Rogen, stole the show in their scenes. They both were perfectly casted and brought some of the humour in this film. For the rest of the cast, I can’t really say the same thing.

Don’t get me wrong Donald Glover/Childish Gambino, who voices adult Simba, and Beyoncé, who voices Nala, did decent enough jobs with their parts and I could easily hear them with their parts but others just needed a change in casting.

My main problem with the casting was with Chiwetel Ejiofor as Scar I just couldn’t hear him as the villain. Trust me I tried to forget about Jeremy Irons but I just couldn’t. Jeremy Irons made this character iconic for a reason and I feel like if they got somebody else it would have been a bit better.

This film added forty extra minutes on to the run time, probably to show off the effects, but you can feel it especially when they change something or add something in. For me, this happened at the ending where they changed not just one of the funniest scenes but also made a scene longer than it should have been.

The songs in this version just didn’t give off the same spectacle as in the original version. The original used the sets and lighting to help bring you into the numbers this one has nothing to make you interested in them.

At certain points, the lighting would change for no reason. What I mean is that it would be Day time and then just a couple of seconds later it would be dark. But hey, at least we have another great score by Hans Zimmer.

In the end, The Lion King (2019) just doesn’t live up to the original. If nothing else is showing and you need to beat the heat this summer than go ahead and check it out but if not just stay home and watch the 1994 one.

I give The Lion King (2019) a 5.5/10.