Misses the mark and is a bit messy doing it

Rating: 6/10 (19 July 2019)

It's not as good as the original; think of your least favorite veggie, then spit it out. For some, it may take alright. The voice-overs, a few changed scenes, a few new scenes all leave something to be desired. They miss the mark; they are not as good as the old one. The queen lion starts off with a faux African accent that gets dropped later in the movie. The Be Prepared song really misses the mark. The voice-over for Scar comes close but it is not as good as the original which had more inflection and gravitas. I'm not going to lie; the live-action animation is surprisingly very good in some ways, something like black and white TV vs. hi-deft TV when comparing the former version with this version. However, the movie seemed to keep trying to lift off the screen as if I had 3-D glasses on. In fast scenes, the left and right sides of the screen went soft on the image while only the middle image stayed sharp. It seemed that foreground depth was not there. All the surfaces were consistently flat. The color scheme of some of the animals like elephants and giraffes was off but sometimes it was a grand slam with smaller creatures in the film. The animation almost got you there but then you realize it is like a video game. On its own, the film might have been better than OK but it was just OK because the former version was better. A win-win would have been to take this movie's animations and put them to the original soundtrack of the former movie. Younger kids will have a different set of expectations; they will see it and like it. It was close but the little bit of miss felt like a country mile. I am sure the folks behind the animation will see the film win awards but the movie overall was like warmed up left-over broccoli. The appearance might have been there; the taste just wasn't there. It all just simply did not come together on the execution. In fact, it was a bit of an execution of what came before.