The Lion King

A verbatim remake that, while visually stunning, is an identical copy of the famous original without any additional ideas, improvements or moments of surprise (except for the dung beetle). Favreau thus remains just a hitmaker who can deliver a film that will hit the hundred-million mark at the box office, but the soul of the original is nowhere to be seen. Commercially, it’s fine, perhaps, but otherwise it’s a pointless update of something that was already almost perfect. (22/07/2019)

Jon Favreau got probably excited about new animation technology because after beautiful The Jungle Book he filmed  no less amazing The Lion King. And even though the story is well known and you heard the music a hundred times, it is still brilliant and I was captivated by this remake. And it is precisely this technology that makes me feel as if real living creatures were wandering through that bush. I was even horrified a little by the thought I had while watching this movie that the kids in the future might watch this kind of movies and think what a wonderful world we used to have... (24/12/2019)

A beautiful visual aspect and Hans’s faultless, Oscar-winning composition. A remake of one of my favorite kids’ movies with a minimum of changes, which suits me just fine. More action scenes and a little more romping in the perfectly rendered countryside do nothing but good. I liked the voice of James Earl Jones and Seth Rogen is fantastic as Pumba. (10/11/2019)

I felt as uncomfortable watching the new Lion King as I would have felt watching natural history documentaries with narration that jokingly imitates the “voices” of animals. At the same time, it is an inordinately long (and drawn-out) film, very dark (the hyenas could sign up for a horror-movie casting call) and verbose, i.e. not very suitable for younger viewers who would most likely appreciate the talking fauna. I very much enjoyed Caleb Deschanel’s camera work, which was adapted to the characters’ point of view, and one wordless scene including the odyssey of a dung beetle with a ball of giraffe droppings. Otherwise, a negative feeling of inappropriateness predominated. When you see a photo-realistically animated (and talking) warthog and a (talking) meerkat tame a (talking) lion cub and turn it into an entomophage, it is more disturbing than funny or cute. Whereas I can still be impressed by the original to this day, the reboot just makes me want to cry over the idea that it will be a huge commercial hit and Disney will continue to churn out such empty, asexual, absolutely unsurprising remakes of its successful films. The Jungle Book had a faster pace and more convincing characters, and it did not merely copy the original film, but developed it in a meaningful manner. It was unique in some way. Conversely, The Lion King is only a soulless imitation, perhaps technologically perfect, but almost worthless artistically. 50% (18/07/2019)

A new version of the classic Disney story about Simba, who grew from a little lion cub into the king of animals and avenged his father's death. The new Lion King looks incredibly realistic, but the moment the animals start talking and singing, it starts to fall apart. The fairytale atmosphere where no one bothered with the chatty animals is gone, and in its new form it all feels a bit out of place. Still, it's an inoffensive adventure that will appeal to older viewers with its nostalgia and younger ones with its songs and lots of animals. But it is far from an exceptional film. (24/07/2019)