Benz Eye View: The Lion King (2019)

The Lion King (2019)

If for some reason you did not see the original 1994 animated film, I am going to be SPOILING THE ORIGINAL AND THE NEW VERSIONS.  I have plenty to say about this movie, so you have been warned.

Pros: 

1.) Few of the new additions I think are good (unnecessary, but good).  The stand out ones are the dialogue, because it gives the actors something to work with other than saying the lines that were in the original.  There is probably a couple more additions I forgot, but few of those additions are not bad.

2.) Timon and Pumbaa are the clear stand out characters of the movie (alongside two other hyena characters, but they are not in it enough).  They are the funniest characters of the bunch (and they were funny in the original), and one joke that references Beauty and the Beast is the best one by far.  I would not mind seeing a movie or TV series with these two as the main characters.

Though, they have…

…Twice.  

3.) It is already obvious, but the photorealistic visuals are beautiful.  They almost look exactly like real life animals in Africa.  From the bugs to the animals to the environment, the CG team did a fantastic job recreating The Lion King as real-life photo visuals…

Cons: 

1.) …However, there is one problem with making photorealistic animals: their facial expressions, or lack thereof.  Let me give you an example:

What do you think is Simba’s reaction in this shot of the 1994 animated film?  Terror.  Horror.  Frightened.  You can easily tell due to the animation.

What about this one?  What is Simba’s reaction in this shot of the 2019 “live-action” movie?  You cannot tell, can you?  This is the problem when you do CG animals: they do not really show any emotion other than neutral emotion.  As a result, emotional moments and voice acting are dulled down due to the characters’ emotionless reaction.  I feel sorry for the voice actors.  JD McCrary as young Simba was acting his heart out during Mufasa’s death scene, but it looked like Simba does not really care about his dad being dead by a stampede that he supposedly caused.  This is just one big problem out of many wrong with the movie doing photorealistic CG (though I have only room for two more cons).

2.) The songs themselves are straight from the original (for the most part), but the dance themselves are lame.  Look at the original again, particularly I Just Can’t Wait To Be King.

There are so many things are happening in this song.  So much various movements, changes of color, and characters doing various actions.  As for the 2019 version, all these characters do is just run around.  The visuals look good, but that does not save it from the lack of variety.  The worse offender is Be Prepared.

Not only do the characters just climb up the cliffs (with none of those cliffs suddenly emerging from the ground), but the song is much shorter.  There is no creativity with these musical numbers.  Add that as another problem when it comes to photorealistic CG.

3.) Here is the biggest problem with this movie: it is too grounded in reality.  Many scenes that are supposed to have some kind of impact are ruined by the more realistic interpretation of those scenes (does not help that the pacing moves the movie quickly instead of takings its sweet time).  The final battle in Pride Rock looks small and something I can watch in an animal documentary show, whereas the animated version looks more chaotic and serious.  Some of you might say, “They are supposed to be as realistic as possible.  You cannot expect to be in the same level as the animated version.”  That is the point.  The animated version is more serious than the “live-action” version.  If the remake has a longer runtime and fails to tell a story better than the original with a shorter runtime, it fails miserably as a remake.

Overall: 

If it is not obvious already, I love The Lion King.  It is one of my favorite animated films of all time, if not one of my favorite films of all time.  I was hesitant, but hopeful that this remake would at least be decent.  I was disappointed.  This remake is nowhere as good as the animated original.  Do not get me wrong.  It is not an awful movie, but it is not great either.  If you look at it as its own movie and not based on its original inspiration, you might say it is slightly above average, but I cannot look at this movie that way.  It was at a disadvantage with the photorealistic CG despite how great it is.  Goes to show that looks are not everything.  My advice to Disney is this: stop relying on old properties and making the same movie unless you are going to something different with it (The only live-action remake I am looking forward to is Mulan).  Otherwise, I am only going to rely on Pixar to do better than Disney from now on.  Worse, Disney will be seen as a studio that is officially out of ideas.

5/10