Movie Reaction: The Lion King

Formula: The Lion King ^ The Jungle Book

A Dog's Purpose is a family movie that came out in 2017. It's a story narrated by a dog about the journey the humans in his life are going through from his perspective. I saw the movie. I thought it was OK. But, let's pretend I loved that movie.

Jump to 2019. I'm in a theater, about to see The Lion King. I see a trailer before it for a movie called The Art of Racing in the Rain. It's also a movie narrated by a dog commenting on the journey the humans in his life go through. Earlier this year, there was a movie called A Dog's Way Home that was also the same basic idea. Then there was A Dog's Journey based on the exact same idea as well. No matter how much I liked A Dog's Purpose a couple years ago (and remember, I said I loved it last paragraph), three relatively identical types of movies in less than a year is too much.

I hope you see where I'm going with this.

I try not to be too negative about Disney's release strategy. They aren't taking a lot of chances, but I mostly like the variety they are producing. For example: A Marvel movie the first week of May. Another one the beginning of November. A less proven Marvel property in early August. A Pixar movie mid-June. A Disney Animation movie over Thanksgiving break. Maybe a live action remake of an animated classic for mid-March. A Star Wars movie before Christmas. In late January, throw away a failed project based on a real-life act of heroism that no one ends up seeing. An inspirational sports movie in October. A Disney Nature movie on Earth Day. Another movie based on a theme park attraction on Memorial Day weekend. That still leaves room for a re-imagining of an old Live-Action  property and a $100 million bet on a classic children's book. There. That's a 13-movie slate. Disney hasn't released more than 13 movies in a year since 2011. And that's a healthy variety of movies that can still take in over 20% of the domestic box office. Disney could stick to that formula for the next decade and fatigue would barely set it.

Instead, we've barely passed the halfway point of 2019, and this is the third movie they've released that is a live-action (or "live-action") remake of an animated classic. They are overplaying their hand, similar to when they released Solo: A Star Wars Story only 5 months after The Last Jedi. This is too much at once. The only reason people accept it with Marvel is because they spent a decade easing audiences into the idea (and those are at least new stories). Even though I liked this remake of The Lion King more than Dumbo and Aladdin, I'm fatigued by it. I'm not sure I have it in me to find any energy to talk about it.

But, that's sort of what I do. So...

This Lion King is the exact same story as the 1994 version. I can't say if it's a shot-by-shot remake, but it feels pretty close. Same characters. Same songs. Same everything. If you like the story in the original movie, then you'll like the story here. One thing I've noticed though: the story problems I never noticed in the original animated movies stick out more in the Live-Action. So, something like "everyone getting over the fact that Simba is actually alive super quickly" bothered me more this time. That's probably because the movie is 30 minutes longer than the original buy has same amount of story. The original movie is a lean and efficient 90 minutes. It's a perfect amount of story for that length. Stretch it to 120 minutes without adding anything leaves this version with a very thin story. The extra time is mostly used for longer establishing shots and new scenes to give Beyonce more lines where she just repeats the subtext of what's going on. The best of these remakes find a new angle to attack the story (ex. Maleficent - the villain's perspective, Cinderella - no songs and light on the magic) so they can get past the hurdles of changing the medium. The 1994 story was designed for non-realistic animation. It relies on expressive animals and the ability to move into non-real locations (i.e. the "I Just Can't Wait to be King" sequence). It shouldn't be a surprise that it doesn't quite work as well for photo-realistic animation when everything else about it is left the same. That's ideally why it's called an adapted screenplay. It should be adapted to fit the new style or context, not simply mimicked.

The animation is incredible. All the animals look great. When they aren't talking, the photo-realism is as good as anything I've seen. Even when they talk, it's not that awkward. Caleb Deschanel's cinematography is marvelous. The work of the Visual Effects team deserves every award they can get. Director Jon Favreau quarterbacks the whole effort impressively. I can't comprehend how all the pieces of this came together as well as they did.

I like all the voice performers. Donald Glover is my favorite thing in any category at any time. Beyonce is perfectly fine and carries "Can You Feel the Love Tonight"*. Chiwetel Ejiofor finds room to make Scar his own. James Earl Jones (now 88), has understandably lost a step or two, but he IS Mufasa. Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen's Timon and Pumbaa made me laugh. John Oliver's Zazu annoyed me in the intended way. Really, I have no qualms with the voice performances, except for a few moments when they have trouble delivering the most earnest dialouge.

*At least, I tended to hear her more than Donald Glover as they sang.

I have the same big issue that everyone has. By aiming for realism, the animation* lost all emotion and character. Adult Simba is virtually indistinguishable from Mufasa. All the female lions look exactly the same. I couldn't read emotion on any character's face. The voice-acting had to work overtime to convey how characters felt. This then heightened the discrepancy between how the characters felt and what I actually saw on their face. It's not an "uncanny valley" problem. Rather, it's that the photo-realism comes at the expense of expressiveness. There really isn't a solution to this problem. It's fundamental to the idea. This does highlight why the original was in the style that it was. I appreciate the effort, and I assume all the new technology they developed for this will be put to good use in future movies.

*I'm calling the movie "Live Action" because that's what it's meant to replicate, but it's actually all animation.

Let me sum things up. I liked it, albeit a lot less than the original. It's exactly the same story. It doesn't add much anywhere. Good voice-cast. Great animation. Poor job combining the voice-cast with the animation. I'm glad I saw it. I'm not surprised that I had the issues I did with it. Please, Disney, spread these remakes out a little more. You are making it really hard for me to disagree with the people calling you creatively bankrupt and valuing short term profit margins over long-term sustainability.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend