"Live-Action" does not always work

Rating: 2/10 (1 August 2019)

A computer-animated remake of Disney's traditionally animated 1994 film of the same name. The plot follows Simba, a young lion who must embrace his role as the rightful king of his native land following the murder of his father, Mufasa, at the hands of his uncle, Scar.
So...I took a few days to compose my thoughts after this one. I already knew going in that this film would be a tricky one to watch for me. I hold the original animated film at such high acclaim, it's one of my favorite animated films of all time. As a child and as an adult "The Lion King" had a huge impact of me, so obviously this remake was never going to live up to that. Jon Favreau had an impossible task to do and I can't even imagine the immense pressure he was probably under. But with all that said, I'm still going to post my honest thoughts about the film unfiltered.
The first thing I need to say is I do not hate live-action films. The live action "Beauty and the Beast" was fine and I didn't have many problems with it. It added new story elements which is the point of a remake. Though granted most of the other live-action films Disney has come out with recently I haven't enjoyed. "Aladdin" this year was not very good, but there were parts that I thought were enjoyable enough. That could be because again, I don't have that strong emotional attachment to "Aladdin" like I do with "The Lion King".
Without tiptoeing around it, this film made me upset. Like many I've known have said, its creation is so pointless other than for nostalgia inducing money. If those reading this felt differently I'm glad you found enjoyment out of it, but I don't understand! Do the visuals look very realistic and state of the art technology? Yes, but nothing about this movie is "live-action". Seeing these realistic looking animals open their mouths and talk was just so surreal. It looked so laughable! You're taking literally all of the visually interesting traits from every character and dulling it down. Scar's black mane and Mufasa's red mane are bright contrasting colors for a reason! I couldn't tell the difference between any of the lions in this film. There's zero distinguishing traits.
All the bright fun colors of the original film are gone and replaced with fifty shades of tan. This is why animation was created and some mediums should just not be adapted into live-action, especially when an all animal cast is concerned. There's also no emotional expressions to be seen because again, the animals look realistic. Any of the key emotional gripping points of the original film are recreated here, but it's apparent when "the scene" happens and I felt absolutely nothing that facial expression in character is so important. That scene in the animated film resonated with so many people, but this recreation didn't do that.
So there isn't much that is added to the overall plot of the film, little things here of there. But what is added adds nothing. There's also many things taken out of the film, "Be Prepared" no longer exists within full song in this animal planet universe were seeing. This is probably because Chiwetel Ejiofor could never replicate the sassy legend that is Jeremy Irons as Scar, but this is just a theory. Rafiki is also gone as we know him, which saddens me deeply. They just stripped so much of the humor that it's kind of depressing at points when I remember that the animated film exists still and I'm not watching that.
I can't comment on the soundtrack because it's just the original soundtrack repurposed for this movie. So that credit goes to the Elton John, Tim Rice and composer Hans Zimmer. I can however comment on the voice acting in this film. So Donald Glover was fine, I didn't have any issue with his voice as Simba. Beyonce as Nala was literally just Beyonce in my head, especially during her continuous riffing during songs. Girl we know you can sing, but it's a lot. Timon and Pumbaa can never be replaced, so Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen never stood a chance. John Oliver as Zazu was especially bad though, what even was that? All the replacements obviously pale in comparison to the original cast, but I can't necessarily flaunt them for that.
Last thing..."Can you feel the love tonight?" was played in broad daylight. That's such a simple detail that bothered me so much amongst the rest that bothered me. Again, many will probably disagree with me on this film but that doesn't change my immense disappointment with it. It makes me worry for the many live-action remakes in the works currently, however all of those at least have humans to work with. I'll eventually forget about this film and just continue loving the animated masterpiece that is so dear to me.