Just so y’all don’t think I’m blind to the flaws of this film, here are my complaints. * Like I said, I got bored during a lot of parts where it was line for line the original. Jesus. Was every line really that important? Favreau said Mufasa’s lines stayed the same but damn near every other line did too. * The editing is off during the musical numbers. Some shots linger for too long when there clearly should’ve been a cut. Like we spend too much time on the row of animals bowing when we should’ve gone to the final shot of Circle of Life. That’s not trying to make it exactly like the original, that’s just being a good editor. * Yes, the facial animations are absolutely a problem. Mufasa is permanently in wise old leader mode, Young Simba makes no expression to match J.D. McCrary’s excellent performance during Mufasa’s death, adult Simba and Nala are too wooden. I think Zazu, Rafiki, Timon, Pumbaa, and the hyenas were fine though. Scar also looked okay, he looked evil enough. * A chunk of the time the actors don’t give a shit because they’ve got the same lines over and over again which is such a waste of a great cast. * Keegan Michael Key and Eric Andre, while they thankfully do get some laughs, are pretty wasted. I remember watching a take of their intro where they’re hyucking it up and being funny but creepy, and Favreau says “no play it straighter.” Why would you cast two of the funniest comedians alive as two of the most beloved Disney comic relief figures if you weren’t going to let them be funny? * Lindiwe, the singer of Circle of Life, also played Rafiki in the Broadway tour for almost 20 years, but she has a different singing style than Carmen Twilie did. While it’s a nice touch that she was brought in, she just doesn’t sound right because her arrangement of Circle of Life is different than the movie’s version. She absolutely kills her version of Circle of Life, which makes it all the more a shame that this Circle of Life is 80% just the original. * James Earl Jones is James Earl Jones but he has clearly aged the past 25 years and is almost 90. If you thought his facial expressions were bad, James sounds awful, I’m sorry to say. It sounds like they’re trying to wake him up every line, and they even have to reuse some audio from 1994 for lines that are more demanding. It’s like yeah, nobody else can really play Mufasa, but at the same time... sigh. I guess Idris should’ve been called in. * The new scene where Nala escapes Pride Rock is good, but otherwise nothing else substantial is added. Otherwise it’s just little fluff like the mouse scenes and excuses for the effects team to show off. Didn’t need the shit scene. * It’s hard to realize this is longer than the original because lines are shortened and scenes are condensed. Nala immediately recognizes Simba and says the hyenas took over and then the song starts. Too fast. Mufasa’s cloud shows up even more out of nowhere. * Stampede is pretty botched even with Zimmer’s incredible new arrangement. Scar striking Mufasa’s eye is pretty vindictive but yeah I can see why people are laughing. I’ll probably think of more but I’ve seen it four times already so
Disney's 'The Lion King' Looks to Roar at the Weekend Box Office - Box Office Mojo Wow it got a A plus cinemascore yet all the people I know didn't like it.
Really sucks that this movie is still gonna make bank, in spite of it being a pale imitation of the original.
I don't care about all these negative reviews. I'm looking forward to seeing this on my Birthday tomorrow. It's just going to bring back lots of good memories of my childhood.
I saw an interview with Favreau on Jimmy Kimmel. He claims only one - literally one - shot in the entire movie is real and not fully cgi. All of the shots are fully cgi, they didn’t film environment scenes in Africa or something. No idea which one that would be. My guess is the shot during the opening in which the clouds dissipate in front of the sun, cos that looked a bit stock videoish to me...but yeah, no clue!
So was the whole "Simba's hair rolled into dung" scene really in the movie? Not that I doubt Doug, but EWWW Link please! Shows once again why you should not trust the score on such places. Not surprised. The real Africa is far more beautiful than these settings... That confirms what I thought - you live in the 90ies and are posting from the past! Seriously, you get movies from the library? You rent them on VHS or something? Joke aside, whatever happened to torrents, eh? Nobody in the USA dares use them anymore? In that case, you have my sympathies.
I now need to find some David Attenborough footage where he talks about lions and put that under the movie when the BRrips come out. LOL! "And here you can see how the beta male achieves dominance by getting rid of the alpha. This is the circle of life...." Shinobi will probably make that, considering he ranted for three times as long about the Critic being wrong about Jurassic World 2, or something...
I get many of mine from my library also. It gets all the new films at release day! I'm not joking! Watched many films from there! The new dvd movies for free!
Like I said, the best part of this film, and the only original material in it, is the stuff Neo Geo clearly filmed! LOL Everything else is just The Lion King you already know, except less good. But, damn is that footage amazing.
You know what, maybe if they went back to the original NatGeo-style documentary draft they had for the original they've could've saved this movie with.
That, or use my Muppets idea. Yes, just make the Lion King with Muppets. I mean, if everything's going to be artificial anyways... might as well. Then, it wouldn't be so jarring when an animal goes from being a real animal, to a CGI zombie version.
Just came out of the theatre. Keep hearing mixed reviews about this movie. Sayings it's good and it's not good. Well after seeing it... Spoiler I quite enjoyed it. Even thought everything was kind of the same story and the same scene basically result with live action. To me it brought back a lot of memories when I enjoyed the original
