Not the original, but highly enjoyable

Rating: 8/10 (19 July 2019)

The Lion King (1994) is by far my favourite film of all time. It holds sentimental value that I can't even begin to explain. So naturally the live-action remake is something I have been dreading/anticipating.
But I concluded that this is another telling of the story before I saw the film. It's never going to beat the original, but I thought I'd give it a chance. And I'm glad I did.
The cgi is outstanding. But, as many other reviews have mentioned, the animals can be slightly less expressive with their emotions. However, upon reflection, I think it was a trade-off between realistic and cartoon. And since there's already a perfect cartoon version of the film - this was always intended to be realistic.
And realistic animals would extremely hard to animate emotion into. But as soon as you accept this, the film is as beautiful as it is heart-warming.
The voice casting was spot-on for all the characters, somehow still capturing the original characters' personality well.
Very true to the original in plot and character structure. Highly enjoyable once you accept it will never be the original. Lovely film and a pleasure to watch the Lion King on the big screen.
I went home and re-watched the original afterwards. The original is still the best, but it was nice to have a few new gags for Timon and Pumbaa and a lot more fluffy lion cubs to coo over. Since the remake was inevitable for Disney's sudden obsession with live-action, I'm just glad the Lion King was treated with the respect it deserved (and not butchered like Burton did with Dumbo). All in all, a very well directed and animated version of the Lion King.