The Lion King - A Majestic Masterpiece

Rating: 9/10 (9 October 2010)

Animation movies have easy, but yet so hard premises to follow - it's got to be an easy story which children are supposed to manage to follow without problems, and it's got to be a positive message from it, too. Most animated movies have problems to follow those codes and at the same time recreate that guidelines into an interesting product. But "The Lion King" isn't one of those - it is an interesting story which will engage the whole family.
The young lion cub Simba (voiced by Jonathan Taylor Thomas) is prince of the kingdom of Pride Rock, but is naturally a little too naive and curious for his own good. The clever, power sick and evil Scar (voiced by Jeremy Irons), who naturally wants the throne, is of course fast to recognize that. He works out a plan which succeeds - a plan which leads to king Mufasa's (voiced by James Earl Jones) death, and forces the scared Simba to flee the kingdom into exile, leaving his destiny as the king in the great Circle of Life. Scar becomes king and destroys Pride Rock by letting the lions and hyenas live together in so called "harmony". Simba is found by two highly eccentric creatures - minx Timon (voiced by Nathan Lane) and boar Pumbaa (voiced by Ernie Sabella).
Several years later, the older Simba (voiced by Matthew Broderick) is still located in the jungle with his two friends, and is now a wild lion who lives of eating creeps living underneath rocks and has completely dislodged his past. But one day, Simba's best friend from Pride Rock, Nala (voiced by Moira Kelly), accidentally finds the three of them in her chase for hope. After reuniting with Nala, Simba realizes that it was a mistake to flee from his kingdom, and decides to return and thereby face his past. But it is too late to rebuild the destroyed Pride Rock to the idyllic kingdom it once was?
Yes, the plot is simple (and somehow borrowed from the classic Hamlet story) - a prince who is dethroned, flees, and thereafter returns to take it back and thereby save the kingdom. Yes, it is a cliché inspired message - to run from the past doesn't change anything and all that stuff. But then there's the most important thing - to create a main character which we as an attendance care for, and there's where The Lion King scores the most. Because, who doesn't care for Simba, a naive prince who was forced to flee from his own land, tried to forget his past, but still has the scars from it, never managing to entirely forget? You just HAVE to care for such a character, whether you want to or not, because most of us can somehow relate to his feelings.
You know how the story is going to end already before you even watch it. But still, we catch ourselves to get engaged in Simba's battle against time to find courage to once and for all meet his past. We get touched by the traditional love story between two childhood friends who casually meet again several years later. We cheer for the hero in his obligatory battle against his arch enemy. The story is really simple, but yet so genius.
I also have to praise the technical achievements in the movie. The animation is excellent (ah, the times where they actually DREW the animation pictures!), and I felt like I was in the story through the whole movie. The music is perfect for the story, it really gets us in the right mood.
The voice acting are also outstanding - especially the sophisticated bad guy (Irons), the indoctrinating father (Jones), the loyal, old school servant (Atkinson) and the funny annoying hyenas (Goldberg, Marin, and Cummings) are perfectly cast. But also the optimistic Sabella, the charming presumptuous Lane, and the believably depressed Broderick gives delightful impressions, even though the acting performances of course is second in line in such a movie. But point is, with so many enjoyable characters, a movie has to succeed. The key lies in story and characters, the rest of it comes almost automatically.
All in all, The Lion King isn't just among the best animated stories of all time, in my opinion. It's also among the best movies overall. Two thumbs up, and a well deserved 9/10 for this classic. The movie lives up to its name - it really IS majestic!