Visually impressive but otherwise stick to the original

Rating: 1/10 (20 July 2019)

As I have mentioned before, Disney's 'live-action' adaptations of their classic animated movies have been disasters, and most certainly, not necessary, 'The Jungle Book' was horrendous, 'Aladdin' was ridiculous, 'Dumbo' was worse, and the less said about the reworking of 'Pete's Dragon' the better! However, to give it it's dues, the adaptation of 'Beauty And The Beast' was actually not too bad.
Well, Disney has done it again!
The original 'The Lion King', released in 1994, is easily one of Disney's greatest animated movies and yet they decide to completely waste millions on a completely unnecessary remake and......well there is so much to say about this.
Jon Favreau is the director of this version, he was also the director for 'The Jungle Book' live-action remake. I can't understand how they can call this a 'live-action' adaptation, as every scene and every animal in the movie is created via CGI, surely another version of 'animation',......so they have just remade another animated version of 'The Lion King? Well, yes technically.
Ok, let me say this about it first, as far as visuals go, it is seriously impressive. It does look so realistic and praise goes to the digital artists responsible for the look of the movie. The vocal casting was alright but no way as good as the original casting, I for one missed Nathan Lane and Whoopi Goldberg as 'Timon' and 'Shanzi' respectively, but James Earl Jones is back as the voice of Mufasa.
I would say that James Earl Jones' voice reminded me of the original but everything did! It's the same movie! And before you say 'of course it's the same, it's a remake of the original', it is more than a remake, it is shot for shot the same. Kids who have never seen the original will probably like this version.
The power of the opening 'Circle Of Life' scene is now lost cause it's been done already, the musical score no longer has an impact cause we've heard it before, the emotion of Mufasa's death is lost because we've seen it before, the characters were no longer funny cause we've seen them all before.
There are no surprises here, there's very little that's new, and what is new is so completely unnecessary and well, annoying. The 'Be Prepared' song is heavily shortened, there's a new song added, for absolutely no reason as far as I could see, the scene featuring the 'Can You Feel The Love Tonight' song was, in the original set at night, hence the title of the song, in this remake it's set during the daytime so the song title no longer makes any sense and some scenes from the original have been removed.
What annoyed me about this movie besides the changes, we all know how I feel about change, is that all the personality from the original is non-existent. This movie is soul-less, so much of the humour and mysticism of the original has been completely removed and replaced with an overly serious attempt to make an epic movie and it does not work.
With hand-drawn animation you can create emotion in the faces of the characters, in this that has disappeared and especially in the scene of the stampede and Simba screaming 'Nooo', it just looks like a cub opening its mouth, there is no emotion in the eyes that we saw in the original.
Jon Favreau did great work directing films like 'Iron Man' and 'Elf', but here he hasn't even attempted to make it his version, he has copied original directors Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff shot for shot. I remember when Gus Van Sant remade 'Psycho' in 1998 and it was a shot for shot remake of the Hitchcock classic and I watched thinking 'why?', the original 'Psycho' was already a classic, it was already magnificent, everybody loved it, so what is the point if you are not going to put your own spin or vision into it. Same goes for this remake, WHY???? What is the point?.................oh yes, of course, money! It is basically a cash grab.
I will always love the original. I will always want to watch the original over this. I know that there will be people out there that will adore this movie, who will want to see it to see what it offers, the same movie but with a different look and more realistic characters, and if that's all you want from it, if that's all you're looking for then you will enjoy it, as I said before, the visuals are seriously incredible, but if you are a fan of the original and are planning to see this for a new spin on it or for something fresh or unique then you are going to be very disappointed.
However, there is also the argument that if Jon Favreau had done a new version, a reworking that changed everything then there would be a mass outcry of 'Oh my god, you have ruined The Lion King for me, what have you done?', so it brings me round again to, 'What's the point?' It should never have been done!
I would recommend waiting for this to come out on TV or Sky etc, don't waste your money at the cinema. Or better still, please just stick to the original.
I also understand that there are more 'live-action' remakes in the works, 'The Little Mermaid' is apparently the next one and I can see them destroying that one too.
Disney, please please please STOP this, you are ruining so many classic animated movies just for money.