The good, The Bad and The Ugly

Rating: 3/10 (18 July 2019)

I'm a massive fan of the original so this maybe biased.
The good:
1. Visually stunning
2. A few dark moments are made darker
3. James Earl Jones !
4. Seth Rogen as Pumba
5. A different take on the hyenas
The bad:
1. It wants to copy the original without actually being the original. - this is where the movies gets butchered.
2. Not recasting Jeromy Irons as scar but using his lines. Scar was so meh. (seriously wtf ? This just pissed me off from the start. If youre gonna get James, why not get Jeremy? Its the exact some thing !)
3. Most of the voices are pretty bad if I'm being honest. There's just no soul in the characters. You could argue that because of the realism, the characters lacked depth but in all honesty, the voice actors were just so poor. You could tell that they just showed up, said some lines and went home. Some probably in a day.
4. Queen Bee - Beyonce as Nala was a real let down. There's an unnecessary song, something about spirit, totally forgettable, stupid and it doesn't even match what's happening on screen. It honestly felt that they just had to put a song of her singing to attract her fans. You could tell that they really tried to make her shine, but unfortunately, soulless.
5. Similar as scar, as much as Billy Eichner tried to put in some effort at least compared to most of them, he just falls flat in comparison to Rowan Atkinson. (Why not just recast him ? If you honestly want to this right, how can you not recast Rowan Atkinson as Zazu
? Did they honestly think someone else can best Rowan Atkinson let alone match him ?)
The Ugly:
1. This movie quite simply should not have been made but they did and it's quite clear that its basically the easiest cash grab you could ever see.
2. They destroyed Rafiki's character and reduced him into just another animal. (He was one of my favourite characters in the original, but in this, he has almost zero of his iconic moments)
3. As stunning as it visually is, this movie has no heart or soul in comparison to the original. I was actually prepared to cry at that one iconic moment but it felt nothing like the original. Simba looked expressionless as Scar tells him to run away. This was the moment i realised the movie is doomed. (Theres a moment where they zoomed into his face and I was hoping for a second that i would see a tear or something that expressed his raw emotions at that time but NOTHING !)
4. Can you feel the love tonight - this whole song was sang and shot during the day (i could not comprehend the stupidity behind everyone working on this song. None of them realised that the setting of the song is in the title itself. I just don't understand why ?)
5. If you can't get the most of the main cast back who are actually around, why even make a remake ?
I could go on all day complaining about how they've absolutely butchered a classic for money. If this came out today without the original 2 decades ago, it would be absolutely forgettable.
My honest advice: if you loved the original and watched it a million times as a kid where you could recite each character's line and sing each song word for word, please do not waste your time on this. Watch the original over and over and be happy with a masterpiece.
If you watched the original once or twice or if you somehow have managed to make it till 2019 without watching the original, you may enjoy this one i guess. I don't know. I hope you do so you wouldn't feel how disappointed i am after waiting anxiously since they announced a remake of this classic only to realise that they just wanted to make a movie for money rather than making it a masterpiece.
If they really wanted to do this right: you either copy it 100% or make a different version of it. Making a continuation of it would have been good to the original as not many watched the second one and that could have been made into a good remake.
Great to know that after 20 years, the original is still one of the best ever made.
Long Live the King.