Unimpressive, underwhelming, underachieving...

Rating: 4/10 (22 July 2019)

It's great that we live in a time where the 1994 animated film can have the star role of Mufasa get his iconic voice actor to return. It's great to also be in an era where musicals like The Lion King and Aladdin can get musicians to fill roles with song numbers attached to them.
That's where the greatness ends. The Lion King is an epic film and so should the remake be. However, everything about this film falls short. You can't expect a brand new experience really just some slightly altered scenes, maybe a few new ones and some adjusted dialogue. But when performances seem phoned in, songs fall flat and lack a big punch, the film itself lacks substance and the only thing viewers can walk away feeling is the bit of nostalgia that comes with this is still The Lion King.
Song numbers of "Just Can't Wait to Be King" and "Circle of Life" have a feel of powerful and epic, especially half way through and then there's the build up at the end of each song in the original film. Here, the songs have no real power behind the vocals and the build up seems missing.
Be Prepared is done in a capella and almost completely omitted. It was almost entirely skipped over. Although Chiwetel Ejiofor does a good job as Scar overall, his song is one of the worst that Disney has done. Even though I welcomed an expansion on Shenzi and Sarabi, it really felt that the only voice actor that had a passion for the character was the only one who returned: James Earl Jones.
Overall, this one was a big disappointment. In contrast, I believed seeing the previews that Aladdin was going to be ruined and I was wrong. Will Smith made that film truly exciting and the song performances in that film were epic. It's a huge letdown that The Lion King couldn't deliver the same standard. Jon Fraveau may have put more of an effort in The Jungle Book remake and just maybe wasn't as passionate about this project. Whatever the case may be, this one didn't deliver the grand spectacle that audiences fell in love with in 1994.