Review of The Lion King (2019) by Rofloom — 20 Jul 2019

I really really wanted this movie to be good. When I saw the teaser back in November I was convinced this was going to be an absolute masterpiece, hands down Disney's best live action film with Jon Favreau at the helm (even though Jungle Book really didn't do much for me, Iron Man and Elf are great movies at least).

I also almost always disagree with critics. I liked Aladdin, it had weaknesses that easily could've been avoided (Jafar, like what in the actual hell were they thinking?) so I wanted to disagree with them on this too.

I was so surprised when I saw it was getting mediocre reviews. But I really do see what the critics meant. This movie felt like a manufactured, corporate check list. "Oh okay, now we gotta do this scene, now this happens" with no fluency or flow to it.

Like Nala shows up, they say hi real quick, then they're just in love walking off together. It felt so damn forced. Like barely a conversation... and then "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" was during the day? Took so much away from it.

Timon and Pumbaa weren't awful, just worse versions of the original. I'm not one of those people that is pissed Disney is remaking their films, I like the concept of live action versions of these, but make them GOOD.

Not corporate printouts. Either studio execs are getting involved again or the directors just don't give a **** The ending was so rushed and by the numbers. The lines felt like they were just being read.

And Donald Glover was far from the right choice for Simba. Just didn't fit the role. I felt like it was hard to give a **** about him once he was an adult. And the song sequences were okay, but they tried too hard to keeping it as realistic as possible.

Just make it look realistic and make the animals do cool **** like they did in the "Just Can't Wait to be King" animated version. Elephants can't actually fly but they made Dumbo look somewhat real and fly.

Dumbo's design was actually great, it looked real but still stayed true tot he cartoon. Also, I don't know how you make Mufasa's death not sad but they managed to pull it off somehow. Many of the lines were attempted to be said differently and it just sucked.

"Long Live the King" was pretty bad. Also the hyenas were terrible. I loved them in the original they were hilarious. These new ones were so instantly forgettable it's crazy. Also bad voice casting, when hearing the voices is so bad it takes you out of the movie because they just don't go together, you know you cast the wrong people.

Beyonce was like fine, nothing special. Only great thing I can say was Circle of Life. Rafiki's part was really dialed down. He had a lot more dialogue in the original, a lot more expression and emotion.

All the characters did. Circle of Life was good, visuals were great, the heart and soul were just gone. And the way Simba defeats Scar is different and just lazy. Sometimes they tried to compensate by just flooding the movie with music.

The music is great but it needs to be used to compliment the story and emotions, not distract us from them. And some parts were so slow, like that mouse Scar captures in the original, it like follows that thing for like 1-2 minutes just scurrying around before Scar even shows up.

I know most of this was negative, I'd say it isn't the worst it could have been, but could have been so much better. I don't see why they don't just bring the same voice actors back? They're like all still alive, they brought James Earl Jones back, why not Jeremy Irons, Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane, Ernie Sabella, Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Marin.

Why not have Ed, the moronic silent hyena? He had me dying in the original. Overall, this movie did feel like a corporate cash grab. The fact these movies just say "Disney presents" instead of "Walt Disney Pictures Presents" has corporate written all over it.

Disney is losing it's heart, soul and creativity in favor of money. And there's nothing wrong with a company making money, but do it with some dignity.