REVIEW: ‘The Lion King’ is neutered in more ways than one
JD McCrary voices Young Simba and Chiwetel Ejiofor voices Scar in The Lion King, directed by Jon Favreau.
Look, I’ve seen a lot of nature documentaries in my time. I’m pretty sure that when you turn around a male lion, you can see…certain parts of his anatomy. Meanwhile, a lot of pixels were spilled online talking about how realistic the digital animals are in latest remake of one of Disney’s classic animated movies. But it seems no one noticed that the male lions in The Lion King seem to be missing their reproductive organs!
The decision to do the ol’ snip-snip on Mufasa, Simba and Scar wasn’t an issue with the 1994 original. Hand-drawn animation takes all kinds of physical liberties with character design, often to its credit. And I understand that maybe Disney doesn’t want a hyper-realistic character to prompt some awkward questions from kids on the ride back from the multiplex. It’s funny, though, that this would be the detail that the studio would censor in Jon Favreau’s film, because it’s symbolic of the problem in the release as a whole. Every painstakingly recreated scene feels like a crucial piece of it was sliced out to suit a modus operandi of making a version of The Lion King that might feasibly occur in the real Africa.
What do most people remember from the original Lion King? They remember dancing animals; whether it’s the pyramid of savannah animals in the “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” scene, the hyenas-as-Nazis imagery in “Be Prepared”, or something as simple as Timon “dressing in drag and doing the hula” in a quick moment from the final act. There’s something about the exaggerated, emotive animation in these scenes that engages on multiple levels in short amounts of time.
Beyoncé voices Nala and Donald Glover voices Simba.
Yet the marching orders for the new film were to do away with any anthropomorphic behaviour that one of these animals wouldn’t do in real life. The thinking apparently was that the digital artists did too good of a job with the realism of their creations. The audience allegedly wouldn’t buy it if a character like Rafiki was seen doing his martial arts routine from the original movie.
This limitation robs the movie of much of the fun inherent in the concept. After all, without the trappings of a classic musical, the characters become shells of their former selves. If lions aren’t allowed to dance, why are they allowed to exist in a monarchical society where prey animals worship the anointing of a new predator king? In my view, either we apply the full list of human-like activities or we queue up a new episode of Planet Earth.
It's also hard to account for the flat quality of the vocal performances. This time around, Disney cast a starry lineup that includes Donald Glover (Simba), Beyoncé Knowles-Carter (Nala), John Oliver (Zazu), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Scar), Alfre Woodard (Sarabi), Seth Rogen (Pumbaa), Billy Eichner (Timon), and others. None of the actors sound very fired up by the work, even James Earl Jones, who returns as Mufasa. At an important moment when Mufasa is reprimanding Simba for his adventure in the elephant graveyard, the sonorous voice of Mufasa from the original is swapped out for that of an actor who sounds befuddled that he has to re-record his performance all over again.
Billy Eichner voices Timon the meerkat and Seth Rogen voices Pumbaa the warthog.
This lacklustre feeling also applies to the soundtrack. Transitions from dialogue to songs aren’t as smooth as in the original, and it often feels like songs are cut off far too early, rather than ending naturally. This may be a side effect of cutting out the dancing, but the songs are merely afterthoughts in this format. If the musical fabric of the original film was like live opera, the remake sounds like an impatient person hitting “skip” on their music streaming app.
Of course, any of these critiques could be written off if you feel that negative responses to the remake are driven purely by nostalgia. Viewed in a vacuum, the new Lion King is technically brilliant, as are many of Disney’s other recent do-overs. But even if a kid who’s never seen the original version falls in love with the remake, it’s hard to believe that she would see it in the same light once she eventually catches up with its predecessor. There’s something to be said for making old stories accessible to the new generation, but there’s also something to the saying, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it…with CGI” (that’s how it goes, right?).
The Lion King gets one and a half stars out of four.
Stray thoughts
Some of the “improv” choices the filmmakers made with Timon and Pumbaa’s lines made it hard to land a lot of the laughs.
Rafiki won’t hug Mufasa, but will “boop” him on the nose?
Why bother casting Eric André as a hyena if you won’t let him off leash?