I wanted to like this...

Rating: 5/10 (20 July 2019)

I can honestly say I have never missed a Disney film. And when it comes to the classics "The Lion King", "Aladdin", "Hercules", "Mulan"...etc, I have those films memorized word for word, just like hundreds of thousands of 80s/90s kids around the world. Everything that comes out of Disney is mesmerizing to me. So you can imagine how excited I was about these remakes, especially after watching the Aladdin remake, which I thought was outstanding in keeping me entertained to the last second, regardless of knowing the plot beforehand. Aladdin had its own voice and character and took risks in riffing off of the original that paid off.
This version of the Lion King completely missed what made the lion king the best animation of all time in the first place: the characters, the comedy, the emotion in the voices of the actors and actresses, the subtle nuances, and the character development. The movie focused on the visuals, which are amazing, but so are the visuals on my screensaver. It was never the visuals that made the original movie great. The original was a 2D cartoon. The characters lack so much in emotion and soul, which I know is no fault of the actors/actresses playing the parts because we know how great they are. But it was because they were told to tone it down so their level of emotion could match the lack of emotional expressiveness in the animals being displayed on screen, which is naturally what would happens when you go for making the lions look as real as possible.
The movie is predictable to the point of boredom. Sure, you're going into this movie knowing the plot, but I also knew the plot to Aladdin and that was neither predictable nor boring. It pains me most to say this, but this is a cash grab. If you remember a few years ago, the movie Titanic was re-released, but in 3D. This is very comparable to that.