Disappointing, Insanely Disappointing

Rating: 3/10 (27 July 2019)

If I have ever left a movie auditorium with the movie I just viewed being a conduit to my total and utter disappointment, this was it. While it wasn't the worst film I've ever seen, it was so far off of everything the original had to offer that it definitely qualifies as one of the biggest letdowns I've ever viewed. While I didn't feel completely insulted by the film, as a lot of other diehard fans of the original have been, I did feel like I had been betrayed by it, in a big way.
I always like to start off with the bright spots in a film, and yes, this movie did have a few. First, the technology used to create such realistic looking animals is completely mind blowing. We'll get to how that hampered the film in a bit, but just the fact that they were able to create such reality within the confines of a mainframe is rather impressive.
Secondly, John Oliver's performance as Zazu is dynamite. He's probably the only actor in the movie who actually cared about what they were saying. He took the script and ran with it, and it truly shows in the character. He sounds like a classic British humorist speaking from the body of this tiny bird, and he did a lot of what Will Smith did as the Genie in Aladdin. He paid a ton of homage to Rowan Atkinson's brilliant performance from the original, but he made Zazu his own character.
A third bright spot was the score. It was brilliant, but then again, it's Hans Zimmer, one of the greatest film composers of our time. Yes, a lot of it is rehashed from the first film, but when you're dealing with one of the greatest film scores of all time, you don't need to tweak it a whole lot. Adding a dash of this here or a pinch of that there is sometimes all you need, and this is a prime example of that. It's not overdone so that it's unrecognizable, but it's tweaked enough so that you're into it throughout the film.
But aside from those three spots, this film left me feeling so utterly disappointed. There's a lot to cover in the negative area, so let's begin with the characters themselves. If there is one word I could use to describe all of the characters in the movie, with maybe the exception of Zazu and Pumbaa, it would be dead. Completely and utterly dead. You want to have a funeral for these characters, that's how incredibly lifeless they are. They move realistically and they have incredibly detailed features, but emotionally, they're just nonexistent.
Now, I went into this movie knowing that they wouldn't have the same amount of emotion as in the original. After all, these are supposed to be real animals and real animals don't smile or frown or do anything like humans do. In the original, they could play with emotions because they were dealing with hand drawn animation. Here, it was impossible because of the sheer amount of realism. So, for me, complaining about the lack of emotion in a movie like this is a bit unfair, but when you witness the complete lack of effort put in by the majority of the cast, you realize why everyone is upset about it.
But the biggest disappointment for me when it comes to character was Scar. Chiwetel Ejiofor gives no effort to be threatening or menacing or anything even remotely regarding the level of villainy that Jeremy Irons was able to put forth in the original film. The original Scar was so universally despised as a character, that it made his comeuppance that much more satisfying when it did happen. This Scar just feels very lackluster in comparison to the brilliance of the original.
I said earlier that the score to the movie was fantastic, and it was. Most of the songs were very serviceable as well. But there were two that were slaughtered in an attempt to recreate them. One was "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" and the other was "Be Prepared." The original version of Can You Feel the Love Tonight was beautifully composed and gorgeously animated. Simba and Nala's love, while a quick one, pours off the screen and you're able to, quite literally, feel the love tonight. In this one, not only was it shot at the wrong time of day, but Beyonce, as she so often does with anything she's in, completely ruins it by taking the female vocals and turning it into something you'd hear on Top 40 Radio. This isn't hit radio in New York, this is The Lion King! Make an effort! Do something!
Be Prepared suffered from a complete lack of singing. It almost felt like Scar was giving a political speech as opposed to singing his threats. Again, Ejiofor's complete lack of investment in his performance completely hurts the song, and the decision to take one of the greatest Disney villain songs of all time and transform it into something so quiet and powerless is mind boggling. This is one of the spots where the movie borders on insulting fans of the original. It's really, really degrading, which is sad because Be Prepared is such a landmark of The Lion King.
But the biggest slap in the face to the original fans was the part where Simba shakes his mane and one random tuft of fur, which could've come from any of the huge number of lions that call Africa home, somehow finds its way to Rafiki (who, by the way, has been turned from a guiding light kind of character into a stupid babbling nonsense spewing idiot), and the monkey somehow gets the memo that Simba is alive because of it. What's worse, part of it was of the tuft being rolled around in a bunch of giraffe poop by a dung beetle. I'm going to repeat that, because it bears repeating: they put giraffe poop in the remake of The Lion King! I'm gonna end the review there before I get any more disappointed and disgusted with this film.
So it is with a heavy heart that I give this such a low rating. I expected so much out of a remake of one of the greatest animated films ever created, and what I got was emotionless performances, bland characters, Beyonce being terrible (so, in other words, being herself), and giraffe poop. Thanks, Disney. I won't be seeing this again.