I recently watched Invasion of the Body Snatchers. That movie is about pods who look and act like real people but are just empty shells. 2019 Lion King is a body snatched movie of 1994 Lion King. It tells the same story. With the same characters. And the same soundtrack. But always…just slightly missteps where the 1994 version soared.
You all know this now classic tale: Claudius, er, Scar (Chiwetel Ejiofor), jealous of his brother’s reign (Mufasa, voiced again by the great James Earl Jones) as king of Denmark, er, the African pride lands, vows to take the crown for himself and in the process rid him of his brother and his nephew Haml… er, Simba (Donald Glover). Add a little circle of life. A little Hakuna Matata. And a little Beyonce, and you’ve got the recipe for a great Disney adaptation of Shakespeare’s most famous story.
On paper. You have the recipe on paper. I run hot and cold with Disney’s live action remakes of all their films. When the film they’re remaking isn’t good, I’m usually on board (Pete’s Dragon the animated film was pretty bad; the remake was excellent). That’s because there’s lots of room for improvement on the story. But for Beauty and the Beast and the especially The Lion King, who’s stories were pretty much perfect already, what’s the point other than cynical cash grabbing? So Jon Favreau, the director is faced with 2 options: either 1) make bold story changing decisions that could make the story slightly greater, or way worse or 2) make minor tweaks around the edges and basically tell the same story, like Beauty and the Beast did. Because 2019’s Lion King is more cash grab than anything, Favreau was probably pushed into the latter choice. The biggest updates to The Lion King’s material are probably the modernized improvised dialogue of Zazu, Timon, and Pumbaa, who make the movie come alive because what they say is not always an exact line reading from the 1994 film. Favreau doesn’t really touch the meat of the story, relying on his talented actors to interpret the dialogue in a new way. When you listen to James Earl Jones’s Mufasa in 1994 compared to 2019, the line readings lack the power of the earlier film. It’s not just Mufasa (though he’s the easiest to compare): Simba, Scar, Nala’s lines have the exact same lines as the 1994 movie which are read in just a slightly off way.
Which brings me to the live action version of the movie, the biggest double edged sword I’ve seen in a long time. The biggest directorial flourishes Favreau takes are in these moving camera shots of the African plains. The animals, colors, and cinematography of what you see is simply breathtaking, as Disney has spared no expense. Here’s the rub: by being so photorealistic, all the characters are rendered emotionless in their facial expressions going for truth in real life. Meaning those line readings Donald Glover, Beyonce, James Earl Jones, and Chiwetel Ejiofor are doing have to do ALL the conveying and emotional heavy lifting. In the 1994 version, the humanized animal faces helped the voice actors, who completely nail the Shakespeare play they’re clearly voicing. The best example is Scar: Chiwetel Ejiofor does his best to make Scar the complicated character that he is: duplicitous, menacing, sad, etc, but in 1994, Jeremy Irons had an animator who did a spectacular job turning Scar INTO Claudius from Hamlet. Ejiofor has no such support. That’s why the comedic improvisers shine best in this new Lion King: they’ve got a blank slate basically to create a new version of Zazu (John Oliver, bravo), Timon (Billy Eichner), and Pumbaa (Seth Rogen). Even Beyonce, the Queen, can’t will the exact same lines from a perfect 1994 story to be as powerful in 2019 with no animation help, though she tries her best (don’t worry Beyhive, Beyonce acquits herself admirably). There is one dramatic voice action exception: JD McCrary doing young Simba. You feel every emotion that kid is giving you, especially during the Wildebeest stampede.
Just cause this version of The Lion King isn’t the masterpiece of the 1994 version, doesn’t mean that it can’t be fun. The story is as old as Shakespeare, and still is as powerful in 2019. The Elton John songs were spectacular then, and remain spectacular in 2019 with different montages. And Beyonce’s involvement means we get a new Beyonce song that’s really a banger. There are worse ways to be mildly disappointed as far as I’m concerned.