Disney’s Lion King remake is out now. It’s the latest in a long line of remakes but this one is somehow the re-make-iest of them all. For both good and bad… but mostly bad.
So here’s some math. Take the original cel animated Lion King and add near photo-realistic CGI, add a large amount of “realism” and then subtract 95% of the fun and inventiveness. I’m not saying this is the grimdark version of the Lion King since there’s still plenty of humor (mostly Timon and Pumbaa) but they’ve removed the inventive imagery and enjoyment out of the rest of the flick.
There was a Choice making this film. They chose to make it all CGI and it is a remarkable effort. The movie looks amazing and its hard sometimes to know what’s real and fake (I think it’s all fake). But that Choice came with a huge downside which is that they still wanted talking and singing animals but they didn’t want the animals to look fake. So the animal mouths do move but there’s no emotion in most of their faces. They never cease to look like real lions, birds, warthogs, and meercats… but their “lips” barely move, their eyes show very little emotion. And don’t get me started on how unreal hearing John Oliver’s voice emit from Zazu’s inexpressive beak was (at least the lions are mammals). It’s all just disconcerting how little acting these otherwise amazing looking creatures are doing.
But that’s the Choice they made. You can almost see their devotion to making things as realistic as possible. For example, in the opening scene where Rafiki the baboon picks up baby Simba on Pride Rock and holds him up. In the original, he’s on his hind legs but in this new film, he’s sitting down. And I really think the calculus in that decision was that maybe baboons aren’t physiologically able to stand on two legs, in that specific pose, holding a lion up to the sky. It’s a tiny, unimportant moment, but it feeds so much of this movie’s weird choices.
This Choice also means that the fun and playful version of Can’t Wait to be King no longer has pop-colored animals making staircases for the lions to romp on. Because that wouldn’t be realistic. And that Be Prepared no long has Nazi imagery because that wouldn’t be realistic (in fact, Be Prepared is barely in the movie any longer). Or it’s not realistic to have a giant Cloud Mufasa.
So much of this movie is a direct copy of the original, minus the fun, plus the additions and tweaks to fit The Choice. I hate to say that I was vaguely bored watching a movie that was so similar to the original, with no original thoughts or ideas of its own. I mean, it’s the same story, it should still work as a story. It kind of does but for the bad choices and the constant realization your watching a movie where all the best ideas were thought up twenty-five years ago.
Not that there’s nothing new, but unlike most of the past Disney remakes, there’s few attempts at new themes or scenes. There are a tiny handful blink-and-you’ll-miss-it (or, literally in my case, run out to the restroom and you’ll miss it) scenes like a very quick song by Beyonce which is part of their lip-service attempt to give the lionesses more to do. The best additions are Seth Rogan as Pumbaa and Billy Eichner as Timone – they throw in some lines that were probably improv in the recording booth that actually work.
Seth Rogan is, in fact, a fantastic Pumbaa and really the only new cast member that works and made me smile. Not saying the other cast members are bad… except for the bad choice of hiring Donald Glover as adult Simba. I like Glover… he’s got talent and charisma that’s just lost in this film. Not to mention that Simba, in the original, was a case of arrested development… Matthew Broderick was surely hired because he still sounded young and brash. Glover doesn’t have that and he just kind of makes adult Simba a pill.
Sadly, this is the first case of these Disney remakes where I just don’t see the point. I mean, besides nostalgia and parents with a new generation of kids having disposable income. And my argument for these remakes has always hinged, ultimately, on Disney being a business. They got to make their money but I thought most of the past efforts to have had actual effort. This one… the CGI is amazing. End of story, end of review.
Score: 74