©2019 Disney Enterprises, Inc.
The spinning wheel of the Disney remake machine has landed on the much beloved 1994 feature The Lion King, one of the most successful Disney properties of all time. With Jon Favreau in the director’s chair putting to use the photo-realistic visual effects he honed in his remake of The Jungle Book, does this prove to be a worthwhile return to Pride Rock?
The story, as I’m sure most of you know, follows young cub Simba (JD McCrary and Donald Glover in adult form), who will one day become king of the Pride Lands. When a tragedy set in motion by Simba’s nefarious uncle, Scar (Chiwetel Ejiofor), forces Simba away from the Pride Lands, he must learn to deal with the trauma of his past in order to take his rightful place as King.
The Lion King in its original 1994 incarnation is a brightly designed and flamboyantly animated feature that does represent some of the best work to come out of the House of Mouse. Further buoyed by some classic songs courtesy of Elton John and Tim Rice, and a grand Hans Zimmer score, it proudly holds place in the hearts of the many that have grown up with it, and those that may only just be discovering it for the first time.
It puts a much bigger level of expectation on this remake, one that uses development in photo-realistic CGI to justify its existence, with the effects offering more of a chance for a nature documentary approach to the feature (something which the original director of the animated version initially wanted to do, before reportedly being told that wasn’t the creative vision shared for the project). But, sadly, beyond these admittedly gorgeous visuals, this remake offers nothing new to justify its being here, with the limitations of its approach proving to be a glaring distraction throughout.
Related: Aladdin (2019) review
There is no question that the CGI-wizardry on display here is impressive. The level of detail put into both the animals and the landscapes that move in are exceptional, to the point where you often do forget that they didn’t actually go out and shoot on location in Africa. It is in the opening set to the ‘Circle of Life’ that best exhibit the awe-inspiring potential of the visual effects, with a variety of hyper-realistic animals all gathering to meet Simba for the first time. Unfortunately, from that point on, the approach quickly shows its short-comings, and the film reveals itself to be one devoid of much ambition beyond the work of the effects artists.
The issue comes, perhaps unsurprisingly, from seeing these photo-realistic animals talk and sing. Lions, for all their majesty, don’t have particularly emotive faces, so that when it comes to hearing celebrity voices come out of them, there is a weird disconnect that throws you out of the experience, one that proves difficult to reconcile with. This, coupled with the dull staging of musical sequences that become hindered by the lack of active movement that these CG-animals can perform (‘Be Prepared’ gets particularly short-changed), begin to showcase that this is an approach that robs qualities from the story rather than adds to it.
All the vocal performances are fine, with Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner’s Pumba and Timon standing out, along with Ejiofor’s more sinister and Shakespearean Scar. It is just a shame that they don’t really work coming out of these CG creations. As much emotion you can put into a voice, it won’t matter all that much if we can’t see any of that emotion being played out in gesture and expression. Therefore, the attachment that you have to the narrative strictly comes down to nostalgia for the original, which are shaky foundations to build anything worthwhile upon.
It is hard to escape the feeling that those behind The Lion King 2019 figured that’d giving the visuals a CGI coat of paint was all they had to do to gain audience interest. This amounts in an effectively shot-for-shot remake that only offers superficial changes to the screenplay while padding out the run-time with beautiful but superfluous CGI-nature shots. Once the initial awe falls away from the visual effects, you quickly realise that there is pretty much nothing to attach to, with the characters proving emotionally distant as a result of their design. The film ends up with a lack of energy, as it chugs through the beats of the story that you know, offering nothing new along the way.
One can’t help but think of Jeff Goldblum’s famous line from Jurassic Park when considering Disney’s approach to this latest remake; they were so preoccupied with whether they could, they never stopped to think if they should. The Lion King delivers undeniably impressive effects, but sacrifices a lot of the personality and emotion that made this story so great to begin with. A beat for beat remake may prove enough from some, but there’s no denying that this is simply a less compelling, emotionally vacant re-hash of a story that has been delivered with so much more imagination in the past.
The Lion King is released in cinemas on 19th July.
