The Lion king
The mane attraction…
Favreau’s sorta-live-actionbut-not-really remake.
out NoW
Whether or not you consider them necessary, there’s no denying the market for Disney’s nostalgic live-action redos: The Jungle Book, Aladdin and Beauty And The Beast combined have taken more than $3bn at the box office. The Lion King is the latest, and although it isn’t really live action at all, its CGI visuals are so photorealistic it might as well be.
The 1994 Lion King is one of the most beloved of the new(ish) Disney classics, and here director Jon Favreau gives it the same treatment he gave The Jungle Book (although that film featured Neel Sethi as Mowgli – The Lion King features no living beings on screen). Photoreal characters are stunningly rendered in a remake that very closely follows the original, which makes for a bizarre experience, as there’s the inescapable feeling you’ve already seen it, even if there’s delight to be had seeing your favourites come to ‘life’.
Musical cues, identically recreated iconic shots and largely repeated dialogue hit the nostalgia buttons for a rush of feels for viewers familiar with the original. It’s hardly necessary to restate the plot: lion prince Simba (JD McCrary, and later Donald Glover) is nervous about following in the pawprints of his father/king Mufasa (James Earl Jones, reprising his role with authority). The big moments of the ’toon provide the set-piece peaks here: from the opening ceremony at Pride Rock to that valley of stampeding wildebeest, the key scenes are recreated in frequently jaw-dropping fashion.
The fact the story holds no surprises for anyone who has seen the original means you can just gawp at the visuals, which almost feels like the point. It’s a remarkable step forward in animation terms. The lighting is incredible. You might remember the animals are animated, but it’s almost impossible to convince your brain that the backgrounds aren’t real.
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Besides talking, the animal cast are mostly restricted by their real-world physicality, including minimal facial expressions. It can make certain scenes (particularly musical numbers) feel muted, with the performers only given minor mouth movements to sell their emotions. Any more might have broken the realism, but arguably would have added to the investment. (It would be interesting to watch a Lion King that goes further and ditches all speaking.)
In many ways, this Lion King is shot like a high-end nature documentary. Most of the fun angles and zooms are reserved for warthog Pumbaa (Seth Rogen) and meerkat Timon (Billy Eichner), who have enormous fun taking the, ahem, lion’s share of the jokes. Simba’s future partner Nala (Shahadi Wright Joseph and later Beyoncé Knowles-Carter) has a little more to do this time, though KnowlesCarter proves more of an asset in the singing stakes (providing a new original song) than the dramatic. Chiwetel Ejiofor has the unenviable task of following Jeremy Irons as evil uncle Scar, but still manages to ooze classically trained menace.
There’s no denying the lavish craft, care and budget that’s gone into recreating childhood memories. But while the result is an astonishing spectacle, the hyperreal visuals sometimes feel like they’re in conflict with the Shakespearean drama and crowd-pleasing songs. Matt Maytum
THE VERDICT
Disney’s original ’toon still rules when it comes to heart, but this shot-for-shot remake is an impressively mounted, visually breathtaking nostalgia rush.