American Movie: The Lion King (2019)
Genre: family, animal, adventure (also drama/music)
Starring: A lot of people. See imdb.
Released: July 2019
Watched: July 2019 in theatres
Just yesterday (Thursday) I booked a ticket for 3:30pm today (Friday)… And then I woke up at 2PM hahahaha nice one. I almost overslept for my 3:30pm movie. ‘-’
WATCHED IT BECAUSE...
It’s the Lion King, duh! Ready for a nostalgia party!? + animals are fuzzy. *_*
THE REVIEW
This is interesting because this is the first major motion picture that I’m going to review. I am not a movie critic at all; I am a major consumer and I consume films for pleasure and enjoyment. I don’t really do in depth movie, plot, and acting analysis because I can’t write or direct my own movies or act, so this is just my feelings as a consumer.
I can’t remember if we owned the VHS of The Lion King (1994); for sure we owned Lion King 2. If we didn’t, then we saw it on TV and recorded it from there. We as in my siblings and me. Particularly my little brother. I loved the movie, too, but my brother (as like a 5-8 years old?) played and rewinded and played it MULTIPLE times a day. But despite this being one of the few movies that I’ve watched like more than 3x, I don’t remember a LOT of it.
I remember that Mufasa’s evil brother kills him, and that Simba is a little lion and “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” and “You deliberately disobeyed me!” and hyenas are evil, but the tiny parts I didn’t remember so much. So it was refreshing to be reminded of what happens in this version. It’s interesting because all the Disney movies are being remade into live-action… upon looking up the cast just now, I stumbled upon this article about whether the movie is live-action or animated. Hahaha that’s so funny, I didn’t even think of that. I was thinking that the animals look so so real though.
Anyhow, I also heard that the movie follows the original’s plot almost perfectly. I think this movie is hard to spoil, I’m just going to talk about what I remember.
I cried in the first minute, because “The Circle of Life”. (Nope, that’s not a sentence fragment.) And also “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” and Beyonce’s voice. Now, as an adult, I do see how foolish Simba is though, and how lame everyone was to not realize how evil Scar was from the beginning. He’s so gross and he another article was talking about how dramatic Scar is, which I totally agree. He’s totally jealous and salty (this is the first time I’ve ever used this word… Weird.) and wants Sarabi for himself, which is sort of weirdly humanistic (this is the first time I’m using this word too…). Like he mentions it at least twice, like when he’s trying to get her to eat the antelope thing with him, and also when he’s talking about how she chose Mufasa over him. So weird. I don’t remember this in the cartoon… was it in there? Although it makes sense that a little kid wouldn’t catch on with these adultish problems.
I actually feel like the characters don’t develop enough, since time passes so fast. Simba is actually a little annoying, but obviously he has to be that way in order to move the plot along. Had he not wandered away and believe in his uncle TiMES TWO, then, yeah, things wouldn’t have happened (i.e., Mufasa dying so early on). Additionally, while he’s stubborn, it didn’t take him TOO much time to be convinced to go back (which is fine). I remembered Mufasa’s line “You deliberately disobeyed me” because for the longest time as a kid, I didn’t even know what “deliberate” meant. Also “I laughed in the face of danger” but I guess that’s a quote that’s not uncommon to see…
Timon and Pumbaa are cute. I don’t remember farting being in “Hakuna Matata”—haha! I just googled, that’s because they “censored” it in the original version. I think they’re definitely one of the best parts of the movie. Zazu is so fun—I forgot that it was John Oliver, but I knew it was someone funny who played his voice, and then I just had to listen for another second and I figured out it was John Oliver, because John Oliver’s voice is so John Oliver-y. I feel like the role of Zazu and his voice was very fitting for him.
The hyena with no spatial awareness was hilarious! Did he exist in the original? Also, in the scene when Timon and Pumbaa arrive at the Pridelands and go to distract the hyenas, one of them calls Pumbaa “chubby”. At this, Pumbaa gets very offended and basically is talking about not body shaming people. Was this part new too? If so, I really like how they’re slipping in silly but relevant modern day tidbits into the movie. (If not, it’s just me NOW understanding as an adult…)
(Update 7/25/19) After talking to people and just hearing more about others’ opinions, it seems that a lot of people didn’t so much like the movie. I’m not particularly a Disney fanatic, and, as mentioned above, I haven’t watched the original in over a decade… So I wasn’t comparing the movie so closely to its original. (But I know what that’s like, because back when To All The Boy I’ve Loved Before came out, everyone was gushing and raving about it… But I had JUST reread the first book (in order to reread the second book and to finally read the third book), so it was fresh in my mind, and I couldn’t stop comparing the differences.) People keep comparing the new version to the original and saying how it’s too similar, but also they took out the funny cartoonish parts (obviously), but also the animals were too realistic? But that’s what… they were going for… Anyhow. In my opinion, it was cute and I like animals and I didn’t mind that they behaved… like real animals. Also, I am paying for my AMC A-list membership, so I didn’t particularly buy tickets to the movie so to speak, so I also don’t feel like I wasted anymore either.
OST/MUSIC
* Can You Feel The Love Tonight
I totally forgot that Timon & Pumbaa sing part of it. Beyonce’s voice is so nice in it, with her ~~~(slight melody changes) and adlibs *_*. It’s sort of interesting to hear her enunciate so much (in her verse), but then she goes and starts making it modern and pretty~~~. Also, I totally forgot the lyrics, since the version I listened to the most was S Club’s version that was on Disney Mania. I realized that I don’t know any of the lyrics to the movie version, other than “Can you feel the love tonight?”
* Circle of Life
So pretty, espesh with the visuals. As mentioned above, I cried halfway through the first verse. With shaking AHAHA.
* I Just Can’t Wait To Be King
They’re on autoplay… But I think this song is so funny because of John Oliver/Zazu’s talk singing. But also, JD McCrary (young Simba) and Shahadi Wright Joseph (young Nala) are so good! Their voices are so sweet.
OTHER COMMENTS
The animals are so fuzzy! BUT… I’m actually surprised that I wasn’t as taken with their fuzziness as I was with Pikachu’s fuzziness in Pokemon Detective Pikachu. I think Rafiki is the fuzziest.
I think after looking up OST songs, I started getting more Lion King videos on my recommended… Including videos talking about how Disney ripped off of Kimba The White Lion, a Japanese manga and anime. I think, without a doubt, they stole the story—if you compare some of the side by side scenes, it’s so ridiculous that they didn’t change it more… You can read about the controversy here, or just youtube and there are very informative videos. Wa. Nice going Disney.
OVERALL
- Did I cry? Yeah, only like TWICE. And I teared up like four other times… Primarily because of the music + nostalgia.
- Should you watch it? Of course you should.
-huay