Spoilers! (but who hasn’t seen The Lion King at this point)
The Lion King is such an amazing Disney Movie, that had one of the most iconic movie openings of all time, and with the release of the reboot, some things you can find familiar, while other instances seem pretty bland. The casting and director choice, I felt was spot on, but the one thing that was the highlight of the movie, was the one thing that killed it for me in the end. Long story short, The Lion King (2019) has the premise of being a great movie, but it didn’t hit the mark of amazing as much as the original Disney animation did for me. With that out of the way, let me go into detail about the reboot.
Jon Favreau is the one who directed the newest take on The Lion King, and at first, I was excited. You may know him from other Disney works such as: The Mandalorian, Iron Man, and even the recent reboot of the Jungle Book (2016). As you can see, he is no stranger to the Disney formula. So hearing that he would also help remake another iconic piece such as the Lion King, initially got me excited. He has charm and it shows in his directing, which is why Disney trusts him with many of their projects. Favreau also did nail the casting with Donald Glover and Beyoncé as the main lion and lioness and even Seth Rogan as Pumbaa, which is a chef’s kiss since he was the perfect actor to do the characteristics of the warthog. However, with these foundations of a great movie, I was underwhelmed. The main reason for that, is because of the CGI. I completely agree that CGI is the future for movies, and because the original film being released in 1994, I could see why that decision had to be made. Nonetheless, it didn’t work in this film. The quality of the CGI was certainly astonishing from the level of detail, but since the story of the Lion King was about betrayal and the circle of life, it was hard to pay attention about the messages of the film from the blank faces of the animals. I get that they’re supposed to look like actual lions, but for the emotional scenes, such as Simba losing his father, it was hard to feel anything with a blank lion cub face. The decision to make them real life animals is what really brought me out of the reboot.
With an increase of reboots happening in Hollywood, I hope for viewers to expect that it may not always turns out for the best, which is the case for this film. I know I have the poster hanging up on my wall, but the reason for that is because of the story that the original one did for me. Leading into my next point about how nostalgia can make it blind to some viewers on how disappointing the film can be. Now I’m not saying that nostalgia is a bad method to capture an audience, I just want people to know that’s how Hollywood gets people to watch their movies nowadays. However, the reboot did do one thing; it made me want to watch the original. Thank you guys like always, and I’ll see you in the next one.
TyFox Reviews 