The Lion King Review

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Rohon Nag
  • 2.5/5
Lacking A Soul Or Heart!
[contains spoilers]

This is a full spoiler review because I REALLY doubt any one has NOT seen the original Lion King and this film has no significant difference in story or plot. By significant, I mean NONE. This film is exactly the same as the original, except worse. So much worse.

I WAS REALLY excited when I learnt that a so called ‘Live Action’ Lion King remake was in the works. On release, I went to see the film First day First show! Sadly my excitement slowly drained away within the opening scene.

Lets find out why…

The epic scene of the Simba being held up in the shaft of light. The scene which is still in pop culture 25 years later, that scene is completely messed up. No shaft of sunlight is visible and the whole thing has no stay to feel the epicness!

The problem with this film is that it’s TOO realistic. Credit where credit is due the VFX is astounding. The rocks, the trees, all CGI look real! Not for a microsecond throughout the film does anything not look real. But that’s where it all ends. They went for the VFX so much that they forgot the heart and soul of the film. The animals look real but when they speak, it seems unconvincing. Then they start singing and it looks absolutely ridiculous. Imagine if the animals on Planet Earth 2 started to sing! How stupid will that look?

If only they had kept the animals a bit more stylized and not tried to make it look like a Nat Geo documentary gone wrong, it would have all been so much better.

Not to mention the hum drum voice acting!

Zazu sounds like a late night show host trying to be funny. Oh wait, he is a LATE night show host! John Oliver might look like a bird, but his voice took me out of the film totally. Mufasa is still voiced by the original voice actor James Earl Jones, but his voice somehow has less of a rumble now!

Rest of the voice acting is forgettable. The worst is SCAR. His voice is so not menacing or evil or smooth. It’s just so mediocre. Leaves no impression at all…

Coming to the musical part of the film, every song that worked in the original has no impact here, because in animation they could do so much MORE! Imagine that… the 1994 original feels like a more lively complete version. This feels like it lack life despite looking so damn good. ‘I just cant wait to be a king’ Was so cool and trippy in the original, in this they tried to do it all realistic and it utterly failed to create that fun!

Then we have Timone and Pumba… Timone is a Meercat who looks like he will try and sell me an KIA car! Pumba the warthog looks disgusting and is not at all lovable like in the original.

The most iconic scene in Lion King is the one where Mufasa is visible in the clouds.

Guess what… they butchered it. BADLY.

Mufasa is visible for barely a second in one lightning strike among the clouds. Then it’s all random clouds and his voice. ZERO impact. Next is the Simba returns scene… that too is spoiled by some random black person screaming SPIRIT in the background…

To sum it all up, the film lacks all the dramatic moments of the original, it’s all there but done WAY worse and with ZERO impact or feeling. If you felt this would be good to see with your kids, then go ahead, but the thing is… it’s better to show them the original. Because your kids will never understand why the Lion King was such an icon. A legend among animated films (or films in general). This film is so ho hum and lack lustre that none of the scenes or dialog stand out at all. Not even Hakuna Matata! I actually feel sad for the next generation for whom THIS film would be the Lion King and not the original.

Also, they filmed ‘Can you feel the love tonight’ In BROAD DAYLIGHT! Who makes these dumb decisions?

Rating : 5/10. Barely worth a watch. Just re-watch the original on Blu-Ray or Netflix!

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