We wanted The Lion King and we got The Lion King

Rating: 8/10 (20 July 2019)

Let me preface this review by saying that The Lion King (1994) has been my favourite movie my entire life - I even have a Simba tattoo - so let me tell you I have been eagerly awaiting this reboot more than your average Disney fan.
As the movie began I was surprised, quite pleasantly, that they had chosen to follow the Circle of Life sequence scene-by-scene. Knowing what was coming was somewhat comforting, and intriguing to see how they would bring each animal to life.
I'll admit though, I wasn't expecting the rest of the movie to also be scene-by-scene, but I can't say that I'm disappointed as we wanted a remake of the original; change too much and people will complain, change too little...apparently people will still complain?
The Graphics: As a little girl I would imagine every lion in every nature documentary to be Simba, Nala, Mufasa, Scar, etc. This movie simply makes that a reality. You cannot fault the CGI, it is stunning and every animal's movement has been perfected - but of course this means we lose the anthropomorphic expressions that made the original more relatable, particularly during Mufasa's death scene. While little Simba's voice sounds like he's crying, the cubs face remains pretty neutral. Again, as they were aiming for realistic looking animals, it seems silly to complain that we didn't see any tears, but there is only so much emotion a voice can convey and it does take from the scene somewhat.
The soundtrack: the instrumental pieces throughout the movie were as magical as ever, I'm glad they didn't tweak them too much and lose the Lion King-ness of them.
As for the songs, they were mostly well done, but I was disappointed with Can You Feel The Love Tonight and Be Prepared.
I felt that Can You Feel The Love Tonight had been overly "beyonce-d"; way too many extra notes thrown in there, seemingly just to prove that her voice has such a range. We already know that. The song doesn't NEED anything fancy because it's already a beautiful, simple song. In my opinion it made the whole sequence less enjoyable.
When Scar started speaking (not really singing) some new lyrics to the tune of Be Prepared I started to get into it, but then it kind of just...fizzled out. Instead of using the run-time to do the whole song he starts to just repeat "Be Prepared" while jumping higher up some rocks, and it just seemed a little...odd. Be Prepared in the original was one of the best songs because it was dark but catchy. This version was neither, it was just rather boring.
The Voices: when I heard the cast line-up I was sad to hear that Jeremy Irons would not be reprising his role as Scar, and that Whoopi Goldberg would not be voicing Shenzi. I was thrilled that James-Earl Jones would be Mufasa once again, although I couldn't help but think that they could have really just used all of the old audio from the original, as pretty much all of his lines were the same. Beyonce wouldn't have been my first choice for Nala, her voice just doesn't sound quite right for me, but I think she was probably cast mostly for her singing voice (all those extra notes won't sing themselves, you know!) For me though the most disappointing voices were those of the hyenas - I liked the voice of Shenzi, but the two "comical" hyenas sounded overly american to me. The humour sounded forced and unnatural in their voices and made me cringe. Adult Simba and Young Simba sounded fantastic though, and as the main character I suppose that's all that matters.
All in all I was pleased with this movie. The original is engraved on my heart (and my skin) forever. This remake was the closest I will ever get to watching The Lion King for the first time again, and for that I am thankful that they stayed faithful to the original. Hakuna Matata.