The King of Soulless Lazy Cashgrabs

Rating: 1/10 (19 July 2019)

Disney has managed to hit rock bottom by turning arguably their best Disney movie of all-time into one of the biggest pile of garbage I have ever witnessed on the big screen. Imagine all the colour, emotion, life, magic, joy, and personality sucked out all in an instant from one of your all-time favourite movies. That's this 2019 Lion King remake in a nutshell. As the end credits were rolling, I felt nothing. I didn't care about anything. I never felt sad, happy, overjoyed, or any emotion the entire time. I was soulless, just like this entire movie was. It was Disney at their absolute worst. They took the weakest and blandest possible way out of making this movie. If you've watched the 1994 original, you've seen this movie, and anything they added or changed was pointless filler or bad changes that made the movie much, much worse than you could have ever imagined.
Why would I want to see lifeless versions of my favourite songs with the dullest visuals and animals doing nothing interesting just so this movie can stay "Realistic"? I have no idea but someone thought it was a good idea! Was it worth it Jon Favreau? Improving your visuals so much that the goddamn animals can only open their mouths and do nothing else with their movement? Oh right, animals can't emote properly because they can't emote much in real life! Geez, I wonder why in the original Animated version these Animated characters had over-exaggerated features to be like Human beings? Oh right, so we can emotionally connect with them! It doesn't translate very well in "Live Action"!
You can imagine alot of these shot-for-shot sequences being much worse in this "Live-Action" CGI remake. Scenes were dumbed down or replaced with crappy alternatives because the CGI animals couldn't do them in the movie or had no emotion to pull it off. In one of the most iconic scenes of the original movie, the audience were laughing at a very serious scene that is played to extreme
dramatic effect because of how dumb it looked in "Live-Action". There is nothing funny going on in this scene at all. They turned one of the most emotionally devastating sequences of the original movie into a huge embarrassment. How could you do that? Why do we feel nothing for Simba and these other characters? Why do almost all the voice performances feel like they only used the first take out of so many of these talented actors? Very dull and uninspiring.
They butchered the villain Scar big time as well! In the original he was a sly, snarky, sarcastic, and quotable evil Lion with so much personality and wit behind him. In the new one he just sounds like a generic bad guy Lion who is always angry. In fact, I didn't even notice it was Scar at first! They made all the animals look so realistic you can't tell some of them apart until a character mentions them or you connect the dots with their lines taken from the original, which I have to say was very lazy as it was basically like 90% of the same dialogue. Thanks for also butchering one of my favourite characters Rafiki by the way. Even though you guys were basically doing a shot-for-shot remake, you got rid of his best moments for no reason! Timon and Pumbaa now have unfunny jokes constantly and just feel like pale imitations of their originals who were so beloved back then.
What about the filler and new stuff? Well, you get one forgettable song sung by Beyoncé in it. It doesn't fit the tone of the movie at all and just felt like Disney had to add some random song in there so they could get the Best Original Song Oscar nomination. Shenzi the Hyena is now the leader of all the Hyenas but it doesn't really go anywhere or develop her character at all. There's a new scene which shows Nala escaping the Pride Lands ruled by Scar that is just padding and adds nothing to the table at all. The Lion Sleeps Tonight gets a bit more screentime but it's just showing off bugs and animals and nothing more.
There's probably more but I've already forgotten alot about this movie. They changed some of the dialogue here and there, and most of the time it's worse jokes or lines that don't feel natural at all. Even stuff like cinematography, music, and line delivery all felt off and unprofessional in large parts of the movie.
You know? The more I think about this remake, the more I get angry about it and I wish someone would just snap this piece of trash out of existence. The original was close to perfection already, so why bother remaking this movie? This is the laziest Disney cashgrab I have seen so far, and I'm getting sick of them releasing these "Live Action" movies being made over and over again now, but it doesn't matter because Disney is going to make loads of money anyway. This Lion King remake in particular was easily the worst one so far, because all it needed to do was rely on the brand and make the exact same movie again bring absolutely nothing new to win people over. What happened to artistic integrity, originality, or effort? I hate having to think this stupid movie exists with the original now.
1/10