Brilliant.

Rating: 9/10 (20 July 2019)

People giving bad reviews because it's either "too different" or "too similar" to the original film are too stuck in the past to appreciate the beauty of the remake. It had all the nostalgia, beautiful learning moments and heartbreak from the original, but took a darker, more somber tone than the cartoon. The hyenas took on the role of actual villains rather than Scar's funny sidekicks, which made his partnership with them all the more sinister. However, this was balanced by the addition of some updated humourous moments from our favourites Pumba and Timone as well as Zazu. The CGI itself was visually stunning, and the artists behind it did a beautiful job capturing the natural movements of the featured african wildlife while also making the dialogue and facial movements from the creatures look as natural as possible. The casting was PERFECT, with seth rogen stealing the spotlight as Pumba and john oliver filling in very well as Zazu. Donald Glover really manages to capture Simbas angst, and Beyoncé as Nala sounds so close to the original it's uncanny! Despite less than stellar critic reviews and outrageously skewed reviews from "purists" who will always dislike remakes, my opinion is if you grew up in the golden age of Disney you will LOVE this film. I would pay to see it again a second time in theatres, which i've very rarely done - the last time being to see James Cameron's Avatar.