Beautiful but Empty

Rating: 6/10 (19 July 2019)

Although the new visual effects were outstanding and set new limits for future productions, The Lion King remake is just a shell of the former film in its creativity, adding little original material to make it compelling.
The majority of the script is taken straight out of the animated film (excluding some new genius dialogue for Timon and Pumbaa) and is replicated dryly on screen. The realistic effects took away from a lot of the color and expression that made the original so great, and although the new actors did a fantastic job, it would be just as effective to play the sound from the original with the new footage.
This movie is purely riding the coattails of the original, and proves that by needing to bring back actors such as James Earl Jones to get attention. I don't believe it was entirely useless due to the fact that there were some unique scenes (New material? Imagine that) but overall it nowhere near offered the brilliance that the 1994 film had.
For those arguing that "Walt Disney put in his will to remake his movies every 10 years" where are the 10 year remakes of Pinocchio? Or Bambi? Using that excuse won't work on this one. The truth is that some of these Disney Masterpieces should NOT be remade and this is the case for The Lion King.