From what I'm hearing is this is just a shot for shot remake half the time, but they remove some important parts.Even the score is exactly the same. If you saw the original it's almost the same. but the original has animals that are more expressive the cgi animals are too real and can't express well. IF you just want to see a CGI remake of the original, this is what you will get.
"This movie would probably be a better time if you're drunk (Yeah now it's a p- What?!)" "C" Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 58% - "While it can take pride in its visual achievements, The Lion King is a by-the-numbers retelling that lacks the energy and heart that made the original so beloved--though for some fans that may just be enough." Metacritic Score: 57 out of 100
I listened to the songs. As someone who has the original soundtrack burned into my brain, I actually thought these were pretty solid. Obviously they're not as great as the original movie's songs, but that's like comparing a cover of 'Livin' on a Prayer' to Bon Jovi's original. You just can't realistically expect it to live up. For what they are, I like the new songs. Although I am worried about 'Be Prepared's' length being rather short. Apparently that's a criticism of the movie too. I liked the 2016 Jungle Book's songs, but I didn't think they were spectacular. They weren't big musical numbers as much as they were just characters humming songs, like real people do. That worked well in context, but I wouldn't necessarily listen to those songs outside of that. This seems to be taking the songs back to the traditional musical numbers. About 'Hakuna Matata': (spoiler tagging so I don't ruin the joke...) Spoiler I'm not thrilled that they used the word "fart" in the lyrics. I always thought avoiding it was a really clever way of keeping the G rating. I guess they can say it now that it's PG, but it ruins a bit of the cleverness. I guess it's cute that they kept that bit meta (both versions acknowledge the crudeness of the word), but I still wish they found some way around just blatantly saying it. It's kind of like the "fart gun" in Despicable Me. The first film intentionally avoids naming it, instead letting our brains fill in what Dr. Nefario misheard when Gru said "dart gun". That will always be funnier than Gru saying "21 FART GUN SALUTE!!!" in Despicable Me 2.
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwe man, I was really hoping it would get great reviews, I really was. I'm not surprised it's bad, but I really wanted to be like, "Oh wow, I must go see this right away!"
My only disappointment was that they don’t appear to have tried to include the songs from the Broadway show - otherwise I’ll give it a look.
What was the point of getting a director like Jon Favreau if they are gonna do a shot for shot, why not just get a no name director for these live action remakes since the blueprint is already there?
He's such an average storyteller so it fits. This time pretty visuals won't save him like it did with Jungle Book. Honestly this movie would be so much better if they would actually do a true shot by shot with the original cast and director. This is just a half assed copy with mediocre direction that it honestly feels insulting. I feel bad for the original crew, it is their work that is getting vandalized.
I actually thought that Can’t Wait to be King was really good and might be on par if not better to the original. How it’ll look on screen, that’s another thing, but it sounded wonderful. The orchestra was great, J.D. McCrary and Shahadi sound wonderful, and I heard a lot of Broadway inspiration in it too. He Lives In You is on the soundtrack, performed by Lebo, but the way it’s towards the end of the tracklist makes me think that it’s in the credits. But I agree. He Lives In You and Shadowland should’ve been in the film.
I still don’t know why they didn’t just stick with the methods used in The Jungle Book, but obviously improved with better and newer tech, for The Lion King. In the former film, the animals were realistic looking, yet were still given subtle exaggerated features in their faces in order for them to portray emotion better. Baloo could still grin, Shere Khan could give off an evil and sadistic sneer, and Bagheera could look annoyed or disenchanted by Mowgli’s antics. They didn’t have to go full on Mowgli as far as facial expressions go, where that movie went too far into cartoonish and jarring territory... But something should have been done to allow these characters, because that’s what they are and not just animals, characters in Lion King to emote and convey real emotion. Instead, we get these lifeless muppets out of the lions, to the point where the song about living a carefree and fun life looks uninteresting and awkward, even when compared to a video of a real lion dubbed over by the song. And then you have Simba, a 500 pound beast of an animal bouncing around like a balloon, compared to the original film where even when Simba was dancing and doing wacky things, he still had a real sense of weightiness to him. I’m not trying to pan this movie at all, and what the special effects crew managed to achieve is to be seriously commended and praised. But, I honestly have no reason to rush out and see this when neither my wife nor daughters want to see, and would rather spend that Friday evening watching the original movie and sequel. Plus, in 10 years, the animated version will likely still look fantastic, whereas this probably won’t.
Its not just the expressions, the mouth movements dont even match the dialogue, they barely move. Aslan is a prime example of how to do both expression and dialogue justice and that was 14 years ago. Let that sink in.
Doesn't play. I was looking forward to see African lines speak fluent Japanese with lip syncs meant for English.
I'm kind of surprised the RT score isn't a bit higher, but I'm not terribly shocked at the complaints. There was a lot of room for improvement in Jungle Book. The classic movie (while good) kind of meanders and has a lot of unnecessary stuff. It wasn't very tight. Jon Favreau did a great job streamlining it into a modern movie. He also changed it up so it didn't feel like a direct repeat. He cut some of the twists, like Baloo's fake death. We know the twist, so why include it? I think that's why it worked. Lion King was already a masterpiece of storytelling and animation. There's nowhere to go but down. I guess they didn't feel comfortable deviating from the core story and structure. That much being said, I kind of suspected this would be the route they'd take. And direct remakes aren't inherently bad. I much prefer the '90s Miracle of 34th Street to the original, and it's probably 80-90% the same. I don't think this will become the "definitive" Lion King, but it will be entertaining.
Eh, not worth the cost to go see it. Though, I just got an offer to sign up for the Alamo's ambassador program that lets me see a movie a day for $20 a month. So if I sign up for that, I might.
