A Fantastic Looking Retread Of The Original, Without The Magic That Made It So Wonderful

Rating: 5/10 (22 July 2019)

I was just getting into my teen years when the original Lion King came out, but it was still something special for me. And I wasn't alone. It was a critical smash, one of the highest grossing animated films of all time, award winning, and considered one of the best animated films ever. In some circles, it is even considered Disney's greatest animated film ever. For me personally, it remains the pinnacle of Disney's animated vault. With the recent spate of Disney live action remakes of their Disney classics (the second one this year alone after Aladdin), it seems like this remake was inevitable. And while it may rekindle some nostalgia for others, while capturing the attention of kids who didn't get to see the original during it's prime, the film largely left me feeling the same way Aladdin did, wondering why this was necessary at all. It still has some quality points, this is Disney after all, but it feels so derivative of the original, I have to wonder what the point of a remake at all was.
The story here is the same, almost scene for scene, so anyone who has seen the original will know what to expect going in. I will say, this may be one of Disney's best ever looking films. It begs the question of why you might call this live action at all, considering the film is almost 100% digital effects. And they are pretty spectacular. Disney has set a new standard for what can be done with photo realistic effects. It does create some immersion issues, which I will get to later, but as far as the films look, it's pretty spectacular when you consider how real it looks. Disney will almost assuredly go home with all the visual effects awards for this movie. The film also sounds great. The voice acting is top notch, the singing is excellent (minus some Seth Rogen singing....not a big fan), and the music is great (once again, minus some changes that left a bit to be desired, particularly the iconic Can You Feel The Love song). I think Disney will probably also find itself in some sound categories for this film. I also enjoyed much of the cinematography, which does an excellent job of pushing us through the African wilderness, sending us on exciting chases and adventures, from the ground up. It makes for a wild ride at times.
Sadly, for all the great technical achievements, the film left me with the same feelings I had when I left Aladdin, or pretty much any other live action remake. There's no way to distance myself from the original, so it's impossible to see this film with fresh eyes. Part of the issue for me was what the realistic animal effects done here loses from the original. The film is so driven to give us realistic looking and acting animals, that a lot of the magic of the original is gone. We don't get the expressive characters we got from the original, who told their story and sold their emotion as much on how they looked as how they sounded and acted. I will admit Disney did an excellent job not making the animals look weird when talking or singing, but the grounded nature of the film does away with the imaginative singing numbers that drove the original. By comparison, these scenes feel ordinary and kind of dull. Especially disappointing is the centerpiece song, Can You Feel The Love, which feels short and rushed. The original film set this up so well, but here, it feels like Disney kind of forced it into the film. What this film largely shows me is that these movies were animated originally for a reason. Not simply because of the technological constraints, but because the imagination of the script, story, and characters demands the kinds of things that can only be shown through the medium of animation.
While I applaud Disney's technical efforts, the film does little but reinforce what made the original such a timeless classic. While children of a new generation might find this film wonderful, it's hard to believe that same feeling of exhilaration is there. While the original animated Disney films because classics for their ability to bring our favorite stories to life, or bring us new ones for the ages, films like this, that are very nearly identical to their originals feel like the same old car with a new coat of paint. It makes one wonder if Disney is still interested in creating new classics, or if they are intent on remaking every original film into a pale imitation.