This is a remake of the 1994 animated Disney film The Lion King. It’s hard not to compare them and for me, this new one comes out the poor cousin. You know, the one who’s fine in the scheme of things but a bit of a bore to chat to at Christmas lunch*?
The voice cast includes high profile stars including Beyonce, Seth Rogan, John Oliver, Donald Glover and Billy Eichner. Eichner gets all the fun lines and delivers them beautifully and whilst the rest of the cast are perfectly good, the material they had to work with was a bit ho hum. Again with the ‘fine in the scheme of things but a bit dull’ thing.
There seemed to be fewer songs in this remake and to my great disappointment, the wonderful song from the ‘94 version “Be prepared” is basically spoken rather than sung. *sigh*
If you’re thinking about taking kids I’d leave your fraidy-cats at home because it’s a bit scary, like the original, but feels even more real owing to the very good graphic technology.
Finally, a warning for cranky old folks like me… the cinema will likely be full of people in their late teens and early twenties back for the nostalgia and this cohort are the kind who will look at their phones constantly, talk and eat KFC through the film. If you do want to see this one I’d make it at an arthouse cinema at a time unattractive to these animals. Say, Sunday morning?
Here’s a three-star review from news.com.au if you want to read more. It’s probably about a half star too generous for me.
The Lion King (2019) is rated PG and goes for about two hours. Trailer here.
*I mean this in the ‘depicted in movies and TV shows’ way, not in reality because of course all my cousins are fabulous and this definitely is not about any of them!