Featured Blu-ray and DVD Review: The Lion King

October 20, 2019

The Lion King - Buy from Amazon: Blu-ray Combo Pack or 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack
Video on Demand (Movie Only)
Video on Demand (With Extras)
Video on Demand (4K Ultra HD)

The Lion King is one of the biggest hits of the year and one of only two films to top $1 billion internationally. It is also a remake of the 1994 animated classic of the same name and is widely considered part of the “Live-Action Disney remake” trend, although it is not live-action, but a photo-realistic, digitally-animated film. Is this enough to set it apart from the original? Or was photo-realism a mistake?

The Movie

The Lion King is practically a scene-for-scene remake of the 1994 film, which I’ve previously reviewed. The plots of the two films are so close that there’s really no reason to type it out again when you can just read the previous review.

Review

While watching this movie, all I could think of was “Why?” I don’t have a problem with remakes; in fact, some of my favorite movies are remakes. (The Thing, Maltese Falcon, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, just to name a few.) However, there needs to be a point to remake the film to set it apart from the original, otherwise you can just watch the original. The Thing updated the special effects so much that it is practically a different movie, so it makes sense to remake it. On the other hand, switching out one form of animation for another isn’t a large enough change, especially since photo-realistic digital animation is actually worse at this job. Animals can’t express human emotions through facial movements, so a more cartoonish style is useful to get the most out of the voice performance. I guess somewhere during the production, they decided that if they can’t get really expressive facial performances while maintaining the photo-realistic look they wanted, they would instead direct their voice actors to give performances more in line with the animation. In other words, too many of the vocal performances are as emotionless at the animals faces they are voicing. Again I ask, “Why?”

Not all of the voice acting is so lifeless. I actually liked Seth Rogen as Pumbaa, but even then the voice work often doesn’t match the animation. James Earl Jones and Alfre Woodard were mostly stoic as Mufasa and Sarabi respectively, so that at least fit better with the animation. Scenes that don’t rely on the animated characters expressing genuine emotions worked better, like most of the action scenes. I also really liked the film’s rendition of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and wanted more of that.

Overall, The Lion King works better as a tech demo than a movie. It looks simply fantastic and if you want a movie to show off your 4K setup, then this is a must have. However, if you want a compelling version of the story, then stick with the original.

The Extras

You can watch the movie with an intro by Jon Favreau, who also provides an audio commentary track. There is a sing-along version as well. Journey to The Lion King is a three-part, 53-minute long making-of featurette. More to be Scene looks at three scenes at various stages of production from animatics to early animation to final product, which the occasional behind-the-scenes clip thrown in. The total running time here is 10.5 minutes. There are two music videos and you can also skip to any song you want. Finally, there’s three-minute promo for the Lion Protection Fund to help save the lions.

Overall, the extras are a little weak when compared to its box office numbers, but there’s still a very solid selection here and you can’t really complain.

The Verdict