About 2 minutes into the “live-action” version of “The Lion
King” I muttered, “I feel like I’m watching the Psycho
remake.” Ahh, the Psycho remake, Gus Van Sant’s $60 million
ill-advised experiment that continues to fascinate me to this day.
That movie was the result of “What if we shot Psycho in practically
the exact same way but in color instead of black and white?” And
twenty years later we got the same question, “What if we took the
global phenomenon ‘The Lion King’ but instead of having lush,
colorful animation we made it with photo-realistic CGI animal
characters whose faces can’t fully emote because they’re supposed
to be ‘realistic’ so it just looks like they’ve all had botched
face-lifts?” And here we have “The Lion King,” a ‘live-action’
remake of a traditionally animated film that feels inferior in almost
every possible way (with the possible exception of the depiction of
Timon and Pumbaa). Here’s the deal: if you liked “The Lion King”
you’ll probably like the new version because it’s essentially the
same thing. But there are alterations that make you wonder why they
even bothered in the first place. Like the “Psycho” remake, we’re
left with what is essentially an expensive experiment that’s
actually an inferior version of a film that didn’t need updating in
the first place.
Generally speaking,
remakes don’t really bother me the way they do some people. Making
a photo-realistic version of “The Lion King” was something I saw
coming years ago. “The Jungle Book” and its Oscar-winning effects
made that pretty obvious. I don’t hold “The Lion King” up to
some pinnacle of animation standards by any means, but there is
something special about it. That something special feels a
little harder to find in Jon Favreau’s CGI extravaganza. The
opening sequence – with various animals traveling the African
landscape to the tune of “Circle of Life” – is pretty much a
shot-for-shot redo of the animated version. It’s impressive what
the computer animation wizards have been able to accomplish here. And
then the story follows the young lion cub Simba (voiced by JD
McCrary) as he learns about the circle of life from his father King
Mufasa (voiced yet again by James Earl Jones). Meanwhile, Mufasa’s
jealous and evil brother Scar (Chiwetel Ejiofor) plots his death and
plans on ruling the African Pride Lands himself.
You know the story.
It’s simple but effective and there’s a reason why it worked so
well so many years ago and still does. Loosely based on William
Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the film has a dramatic heft that a lot of
other animated films have attempted to replicate. Watching “The
Lion King” made today, it feels more of an allegory for the rise of
the evil Trump Administration more than anything. Scar is a classic
Disney villain and like all the good ones was perfectly evil and
flamboyant. This newly rendered Scar is purely evil and sorely
lacking in the not-so-subtle queerness that permeated the original
character. Here, he doesn’t even really get a fully realized
heinous villain musical number. Things improve greatly once Simba is
exiled and meets up with the meerkat Timon (Billy Eichner) and
warthog Pumbaa (Seth Rogen) who can easily be read as an outcast gay
couple banished from the conservatism of Pride Rock. IT’S FREAKING
CALLED PRIDE ROCK THOUGH. But I digress. The less said about the
“photo-realistic” animals’ lack of genitalia the better. But
back to Timon and Pumbaa. They are hilarious! Timon’s updated
dialogue is fantastic and has that perfect Billy Eichner touch. I
laughed out loud several times while the jokes mostly went over the
rest of the audience’s heads. I’ll credit Jeff Nathanson’s
script for that good stuff.
Odds are you know if
you’re going to like “The Lion King” or not. Generally
speaking. I enjoyed it actually; the songs are still good and the
story still entertains decades on. Does this movie need to
exist? Of course not. The CGI is pretty impressive but the
character’s facial expressions are never quite as expressive as in
the original film. The new iteration is almost practically devoid of
bright colors which is why scenes like “Can’t Just Wait to Be
King” sort of fall flat here. Overall this is actually one of the
more successful remakes of the Disney animated classics. Bonus points
for having actual people of color voice African characters and the
fact that Pumbaa actually gets to say the word “farted.” This new
“Lion King” is PG after all. GRADE: B-
No comments:
Post a Comment