It's all there

Rating: Null/10 (22 December 2001)

To begin with a little side note, it didn't dawn on me until recently that Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane both did voices in this film. Perhaps it was a foreshadowing of their later success on Broadway in "The Producers". But that's off the topic. Even though "Producers" is a great musical, I'm here to talk about "The Lion King", a great animated musical. To get this video was my most fervent wish for my birthday on the year it came on video. I had missed it in the theater, and I absolutely had to have the video as a result. I wasn't disappointed! Although it's not as great as, say, "Beauty and the Beast" or "Aladdin", it's still a movie that I enjoy watching now as much as I enjoyed watching it then. Timon and Pumbaa have to be my favorite characters; it's kind of sad now thinking that they were the last "comic" sidekicks in a Disney movie who were truly funny. It was probably due to the fact that Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella just made such a good team. Scar and Mufasa made the perfect "Claudius and Old Hamlet". Jeremy Irons and James Earl Jones did a wonderful job with these two. As always, Disney's high artistic standards were upheld, giving the African jungle all its different facets, from majestic Pride Rock to the eerie Elephant Graveyard. And with Elton John composing the music, how could they go wrong? (As long as he wasn't rehashing any of his old songs...) Overall, "The Lion King" is a great Disney film, wonderful to watch when one is losing faith in the Disney of today as a reminder that yes, they are capable of good moviemaking.