The Lion King Live Action (lol) remake sure was a movie.
I grew up in the 90’s. When the cartoon movie was released I was 12. I saw it in theaters, got it on VHS when it came out and sang along to all the songs over and over. I loved the Disney cartoons growing up, hell I still do. I was the perfect age for the original, and I still love it. JTT and Mathew Broderick as the voices of Simba, Darth Vader as Mufasa, so good. So many quotable lines I still quite today.
We all know Disney is on this kick to instead of making new ideas, they just take an old one and you know, re do it. It’s worked pretty well so far with most of their ‘live action’ remakes grossing a billion dollars each, so why wouldn’t they keep making them?
Side note, I dont consider Maleficent to be a remake, it IS a new idea and if all these movies fell into that I would be 100% on board. Sadly they are not, they are just redoing the old movies and changed a few things.
Was it any good?
Let’s just cut to the chase. Yes I enjoyed it. I watched it with my kids, they liked it for the most part and it was enjoyable for me. But would I have liked it if I didn’t love the original and were just waiting for the songs and parts I loved when I was 12? I dunno, probably? I tend to enjoy things my kids enjoy for the connection it brings. However this move was drawn out, they added 30 minutes to the fun time and the execution of the songs didn’t hit.
Now my older kids had seen the original so they knew what to compare it to, while my younger two have not seen or can’t remember the original. Jakob (13) the whole time kept pointing out all the (unnecessary) changes they made with Kaylie and me, so that was fun.
Did the changes make sense?
In a word, no. The one that stands out the most is the Mr. Pig scene. That’s a classic scene that a lot of people quote and for this they instead use “chubby” and have Pumba talk about how he will always fight a bully. I get it, use it as a scene to show that you shouldn’t bully people but COME ON! “They call me…MISTER PIG!!!” is damn near iconic and synonymous with the character! Of all the changes, this is the one that irked me the most.
Throughout the movie some of the lines that I felt would be there weren’t. Like Rafiki hitting Simba on the head and saying “Nope, wrong again!” Little things like that, so it’s not major but for someone who grew up watching this and simply loved it, and has been quoting lines from this move for 25 years, it was disappointing to see them cut. Though we have a blast singing along to “Just can’t wait to be king” and “Hakuna Matata”
Final Thoughts?
They added 30 minutes to the run time, they cut out several lines I felt made the movie, and they overall seemingly took that charm out of the movie. I know that sounds harsh, but the problem with making a Live Action (CGI cartoon), no matter how pretty it is with the special effects (sometimes the lions movements felt ‘off’) is that it’s not live action. It’s just a fancy ass cartoon. Then again, most movies today are fancy ass cartoons with a few people thrown in. Gotta love modern technology.
All that said I did enjoy it, though I felt it was a little long.
Stats
Budget: $260 million
Domestic Total Gross: $543,041,133
Foreign Total Gross: $1,108,850,076
Total Box Office Gross: $1,651,891,209
Starring: Donald Glover, Beyoncé, Seth Rogen |
Directed: Jon Favreau
Written: Jon Favreau, Jon Favreau
Distributor: Disney
Release Date: Jul 19, 2019
Genre: Adventure Animation Drama Family Musical
Runtime: 1 hr 58 min
MPAA Rating: PG