Three stars. Rated PG, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang
It’s difficult to view this film as anything but a cynical cash grab.
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| Cruelly tricked into believing that he has committed an unspeakable act, the forlorn lion cub Simba's spirits are lifted when he unexpectedly befriends a warthog (Pumbaa) and a meerkat (Timon). |
Disney has been cannibalizing its legacy of late, and the results are increasingly deplorable. Bad enough that we had to endure (mostly) live-action remakes of Dumbo and Aladdin earlier this year; at least they’re populated mostly by human characters who could be given fresh interpretations by flesh-and-blood actors (as will be the case with a live-action Mulan, arriving next year).
But The Lion King is different: nothing more than “trading up” an entirely non-human cast from (more or less) traditional animation to CGI. To what end? Animation is animation. The opulent, Tony Award-winning Broadway production was highlighted by Julie Taymor’s costume design and inventive direction, Richard Hudson’s scenic design, and Garth Fagan’s choreography … none of which translates to this animated retread.
And, as was the case with Aladdin, this Lion King has been expanded from the 1994 original’s just-right 88 minutes, to a bloated and often insufferable 118 minutes. That additional half-hour adds nothing to the story, aside from granting director Jon Favreau more space for portentously long takes apparently intended to amplify the drama.
In fact, such lengthy pauses make the film seem like more of a drag.
In fairness, the animation is stunning: a collaborative effort by visual effects supervisor Rob Legato, animation supervisor Andrew R. Jones, and MPC Film VFX supervisors Adam Valdez and Elliot Newman. It’s not merely a pride of lions looking and moving in a lifelike manner; this story has a massive cast of four-legged and winged characters, not to mention sidebar insects, reptiles and all manner of other critters.
The verisimilitude is breathtaking … and that’s part of the problem. Because it frankly looks weird when these creatures break into song. The talking is disorienting enough, but at least that’s subtle; watching the mouths of a lifelike lion, warthog and meerkat wrap their lips around the lyrics of “Hakuna Matata” utterly destroys the illusion.
