The Lion King 2019 - Review

Well it's the 19th July 2019, which means the new "live action" version of The Lion King is out at a cinema near you. I was lucky enough to go to the Royal European Premiere last weekend at Leicester Square.

No really. I was, here's a picture of me in the same general area as Harry and Meghan, published by OK magazine (it really was that kind of day)!

I'm obviously a celeb now. But anyway, back to the movie review.

Firstly, they didn't have to remake The Lion King. The original is obviously an absolute classic. Not just one of the best Disney movies of all time, but one of the best films of all time ever in the history of film making. I wouldn't say the new movie is an improvement on the original, but I'm not sure it's trying to be.

What the new movie does is takes an amazing existing story, combines it with new technology, and creates something absolutely stunningly beautiful. You know the story's a good one, it's The Lion King. Now take that story and combine it with something that looks as beautiful as this:

That's not a real lion talking to a real bird! That's an animation! That grass isn't real, the trees aren't real! Every centimetre of scenery is realistic and beautiful and not at all cartoony! I'm using too many exclamation marks! Safe to say this entire film is absolutely awe-inspiringly stunningly beautiful! I remember when Toy Story 1 was released and everyone was like "Wow realistic animation is the future" well this seems bigger. This is the most beautiful animated movie I have ever seen. Go see it at a big screen at the cinema because I guarantee whatever size TV you have at home will not be big enough.

Which leads me to the soundtrack, which is similarly big, beautiful and awe inspiring. Like the story, the music is true to the original. The songs are great and apart from "Be Prepared" are mostly the same lyrics as the old versions (more on Scar and the hyenas later), but the orchestral bits in between feel so much bigger than they did in the original. Beyonce's new song felt a little bit out of place, but if you ever had the anniversary DVD where they forced in "Morning Report" as an extra song, this isn't as bad. 

Now I have "morning report" stuck in my head, so now I'm grumpy let's talk about the bad bits.

Okay so there aren't any real bad bits, but some of the throwaway humour from the original has gone. I'm guessing it's because the animals need to look more realistic, so they can't, for example, have Scar pulling faces like this:

The result is that Scar loses his quick wit and sarcasm, and instead becomes a much darker criminal mastermind. The hyenas are also dark and brooding, and although there are comic elements there, they're definitely more evil than their original counterparts. Generally this is a much more grown up film than the original, although Timon and Pumbaa are hilarious and there are plenty of laugh out loud moments throughout.  I also like what they did with Zazu, who I respect much more in this version than I did in the original.

So I'm now a big fan of both the original and the remake, and I just hope that we all find away that they can live together, in the great circle of life.