The Remix is not as good as the original

Rating: 6/10 (18 July 2019)

It's been 27 years since we received the original The Lion King, 25 years of Lion King on Broadway and now fast forward to 2019 Disney is giving us a photo-real Lion King. This Lion King has star power casting ranging from Donald Glover to the incomparable Beyoncé.
The 24 million-dollar question is can this re-imaging of the classic tale expand on the original or will it simply be a film that's great on CGI but lacks personality?
Three things that are vital to this story the music, the characters and the CGI. John Favreau took on this insurmountable challenge having previously worked on The Jungle Book. He said he learned a lot form the latter and applied those lessons to The Lion King.
The scenery of this new version of The Lion King is breathtaking. I'm not sure if you can accurately call it live-action seeing that Lion's don't talk and sing the more appropriate terminology is virtual cinematography technology. In plain language think National Geographic, that portion of the movie is amazing. It's Disney and one would expect nothing less. The one drawback from using this resource is that it felt less personalized. There was no differentiation between the Lionesses. Nala and Sarabi looked the same. The same issue occurred with the Hyenas. The characters that were reproduced spot on were our favorite duo of Timon and Pumbaa. Although we could not see Rogen and Eichner their mannerisms were in full display on the screen.
Favreau made some brave musical changes when it comes to this version of The Lion King. He brought back the academy award winning songs of Elton John and Tim Rice. Hans Zimmer returned to score however Pharrell Williams was given the task to add new life to old favorites. Naturally, Beyoncé wrote a new song called "Spirit". Gone is the catchy Morning Report which helped set up I Just Can't Wait to Be King. Morning helped establish the importance of Zazu, voiced nicely by John Oliver. Almost all Zazu's singing parts were cut. The songs were an extension of him without those songs he comes across as rigid.
The biggest changes to the characters are in the form of Scar voiced by Chiwetel Ejiofor. In this new version, he's loses his sarcasm and is portrayed darker. I missed the dark humor that made Scar such a fun villain and, in this version, his tone reminded me of Mufasa failing to draw clear differentiation between the two. I also felt the Hyenas deserved more screen time. Keegan-Michael Key and Eric Andre are two very funny guys, but it seemed in order to give Beyoncé more screen time they became the sacrificial lambs. Another misuse of talent was Alfre Woodard as Sarabi. One of the great aspects of The Lion King is the centralization of its female characters. This version neutralized her. Donald Glover as Simba was solid, and I enjoyed his duet of Hakuna Matata with Rogen and Eichner. Beyoncé was steady as Nala. The younger stars JD McCrary and Shahadi Wright Joseph were simply delightful.
I saved the best for Last. Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen made this movie go from lukewarm too great for me. They had the best chemistry out of all the characters in the movie. Their humor was contagious and natural. Rogen as Pumbaa got it. He dove right in and it shows. He may not be the world's best singer but who cares it's his exuberance that makes us love him. Eichner can flat out sing and may portray the smaller of the two but like Rogen his commitment comes across the screen. They simply killed it.
This movie will introduce these characters to a whole new generation. Like my daughter, they will watch repeatedly but there's a part of me that wishes they would have left the classic reign supreme. This 2019 version is a visual masterpiece, but it needed more joy in the form of music. So, while I can appreciate this newer version, I still prefer the original or better yet go see the Broadway Show.