A faithful and fun remake

Rating: 8/10 (19 April 2020)

As with all the Disney remakes in recent years, you can't help but go in with a sense of dread that they should leave the classics alone. It's really wonderful to be able to say that they manage to keep the magic intact and produce another lovely piece of entertainment with this, Aladdin and Dumbo this year all being great efforts! The story is still great, the characters still lots of fun and the music still catchy as hell. The cast all do a great job of revisiting the characters; it's particularly awesome to hear James Earl Jones reprising the role of Mufasa, Chiwotel Ejiofor is brilliant as Scar and Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen wonderfully reinvent Timone and Pumba which is really saying something considering how iconic and legendary Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella were in the original. Director Jon Favreau (Zathura, Iron Man) brings a similarly welcome stylistic approach as he did with his remake of The Jungle Book and you can really feel he's had a great time being behind the camera for this epic! And the visuals.... are just stunning. Really beautiful sequences. I laughed, I smiled and had a good time all round!