Woefully Inferior Remake of an Animated Classic

Rating: 4/10 (21 July 2019)

I've always loved "The Lion King." I grew up with the original movie, and always have absolutely loved it. I saw the stage show in Washington, D.C. about a decade or so ago. Even though I haven't always been receptive to the idea of Disney remaking animated classics (as that sometimes seems rather "cash grab"-esque in my book,) I was genuinely excited for this one given the strong connection I have to the original, as well as its seemingly outstanding voice cast and music. Even if the film ended up being somewhat of a cash grab, it would be an entertaining nostalgia rush good enough for me to be perfectly content with having my cash grabbed by the Mouse House. Sadly, the film is actually quite poor and does not even come remotely close to the quality of the original. The 1994 "Lion King" is a masterpiece, and I was never expecting them to top it, but the fact that such a talented cast and crew made something this inferior is highly problematic.
Since we all know the plot of the story, I won't spend time spelling out the main storyline here. What I will first note is that the film's photorealistic CGI feels incredibly realistic, but fails outright at generating the emotion and colorfulness present in the original. This leads to many musical numbers that are far less interesting than the original. Gone are the exuberant smiles and "choreography" of the characters during songs like "I Just Can't Wait to be King" and "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" Instead, we just see CGI lions trying to hop over each other and run side by side, which ends up being a lot less interesting. ("The Circle of Life" is still outstanding, but that's one of the only things to genuinely like about this remake.) The realism of the CGI also severely limits the emotion conveyed in the film, which makes moments of heightened emotion in the story feel regrettably blasé. For such a talented voice cast, the voice acting isn't as strong as you would expect. Donald Glover and Beyoncé are fine, but underwhelming. James Earl Jones is terrific as Mufasa, but his character is (sadly) far less developed compared to the original. The lack of character development pertaining to both Mufasa and Nala compared to the original are both pretty striking, and completely reduces this remake of much of the charm the original had. Some of the supporting cast ends up being pretty annoying at times, like Seth Rogen voicing Pumbaa. Finally, the script is far more lowbrow and cheesy than the animated version, regrettably settling for juvenile jokes and the lowest common denominator of plot development even in the middle of musical numbers like "Hakuna Matata."
The 1994 "Lion King" is a masterpiece and one of the best animated films ever made, but this remake is an astonishing disappointment. It's not unwatchable by any means, but it's definitely not good--and, even more unexpectedly, forgettable. Stay home and watch the animated version again. 4/10
Note: I saw the film in 3D because it was filmed that way, and I wanted to see how the "photorealistic" CGI technology was in 3D. It ended up making no difference besides making the image a bit darker, which was disappointing. The only really good 3D during the whole experience was in the "Spies in Disguise" trailer before the feature.