The Lion King reviews

[dws1982]

I really think that one of the things that turned critics and bloggers against this was that first trailer that Disney put out, which followed the trailer for the animated film shot-for-shot. Other live action remakes have copied the originals down to the shot for entire scenes and sequences, but Disney was really doubling down on it and using it as one of the main selling points. I also think the breakneck frequency that these remakes are being churned out is another thing that's slowly built to the point of turning people against the whole enterprise. Aladdin was just released six weeks ago. Disney of the 90's never would've dreamed about putting two giant films out within just a few weeks of each other.

[Big Magilla]

The long-term among you may remember a post I wrote back at the old board called The Gigli Syndrome, which hypothesized that critics went after the much-maligned Bennifer film not because it was so much worse than other movies of the time, but because everyone seemed to tacitly agree this particular effort was fair game, and it should take the hit for the whole dreary cinema eco-system.

I remember that post and while you are not wrong, Gigli, Hudson Hawke and Wild Wild West were vile films that deserved every bad thing that was printed about them. The Last Action Hero, though, was just dull, not vile.

I beat these guys by a more than a week writing in my DVD review of Dumbo last week of my dismay for the live-action Disney remakes ending with a plea to Disney not to re-make Bambi as a live-action film because no one wants to see Bambi's mother shot in real life.

Here's the review:

Dumbo is the latest live-action version of a Disney animated classic to reach home video.

For eighteen years, 101 Dalmatians was the only animated Disney film to get a live-action remake from the studio. Then in quick succession we got Sleeping Beauty (as Maleficent), Cinderella, The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast, the current Aladdin, and the forthcoming The Lion King, Lady and the Tramp, and The Little Mermaid. Discounting Universal’s Snow White and the Huntsman, there’s currently talk about remaking Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as a live-action film as well. There’s no talk of a live-action Disney remake of Pinocchio but Guillermo del Toro is planning his own animated version of Carlo Collodi’s beloved classic.

There’s certainly no harm in reimagining these classics as live-action or combination animated/live-action dramas. Most are based on centuries old tales that have been filmed before as live-action events. Aladdin, for example, was first filmed live-action in 1917 as Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, then in 1926 became the first animated feature as Germany’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed combining Aladdin’s story with that of the prince. 1940’s The Thief of Bagdad, which was a variation on the Aladdin story, remains a beloved live-action masterpiece. The 1992 Disney animated musical version of Aladdin was equally beloved in its day, the current live-action remake, not so much.

I found both Disney’s Sleeping Beauty and Maleficent to be ho-hum versions of the classic fairy tale. To me, both Disney versions of Cinderella pale in comparison to Rodgers & Hammerstein’s made for TV musical.

I’ve always preferred the 1942 non-Disney live-action version and Disney’s own 1994 live-action version of The Jungle Book to Disney’s animated 1967 musical version and certainly to their 2016 live-action remake of the 1967 animated musical. While I love Jean Cocteau’s 1946 live-action French version of Beauty and the Beast, Disney’s 1991 animated musical version has been my favorite Disney film ever since. I found the 2017 live-action remake to be pretty good in its own right as well.

The original 1941 version of Dumbo was the most successful animated film released in the 1940s. At one hour and four minutes, it was a breezy tale about a young circus elephant who is ridiculed by his fellow pachyderms because of his large ears which, because of their size, he discovers give him the ability to fly. The new version, directed by Tim Burton, adds 48 minutes to the running time which is padded with a story about the owners of the circus and the father and daughter who care for the elephants. The story didn’t need the padding. It was perfect as it was. Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito and the rest of the cast are wasted in the film in which the few memorable moments belong to Dumbo and his mom.

Please, Disney, do not ever remake Bambi as a live-action film. No one wants to see Bambi’s mother shot in real life.

As with all Disney releases, if you want to own the DVD or Blu-ray of the 2019 Dumbo, grab it while you can before it's withdrawn and costs a small fortune to buy it out of circulation.

[Sabin]

Mister Tee wrote
The long-term among you may remember a post I wrote back at the old board called The Gigli Syndrome, which hypothesized that critics went after the much-maligned Bennifer film not because it was so much worse than other movies of the time, but because everyone seemed to tacitly agree this particular effort was fair game, and it should take the hit for the whole dreary cinema eco-system.

You're not wrong. However I am friends with a film critic who has seen the film and says it is an especially dispiriting experience because the animals are astonishingly inexpressive. They are JUST animals.

[Mister Tee]

The long-term among you may remember a post I wrote back at the old board called The Gigli Syndrome, which hypothesized that critics went after the much-maligned Bennifer film not because it was so much worse than other movies of the time, but because everyone seemed to tacitly agree this particular effort was fair game, and it should take the hit for the whole dreary cinema eco-system.

Similarly: I doubt The Lion King is so much worse than the live-action Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella or Dumbo -- but it comes along at a time when people are openly disgusted by how the entire industry now seems to be consuming its own tail: where just about everything out there is a remake or a reboot or a new chapter of something that's already been exhausted. I remember an old Mad Magazine (RIP) feature that dealt with such recycling ("You've read the book, now see the movie...now see the musical...now see the movie of the musical...now watch the TV show...now buy the bubble-gum cards"... etc.) It's always been a feature of the arts in capitalism, but it now appears to be reaching critical mass.

The most interesting thing about this critical revolt is, usually, when such reaction happens, it's centered on a target that already seems commercially vulnerable. People were sick of Jen and Ben before Gigli's release, and the devastating reviews did kill the film at the box-office. Other films I noted in that original post, like Hudson Hawk, The Last Action Hero, and Wild Wild West, also fell well short of box-office expectations. Here, though, everyone seems to think Lion King is bulletproof in box office terms. So, it's a minor bit of bravery for critics to stand up and proclaim as loudly as they are that the emperor has no clothes.

[Sabin]

I'm posting these because this movie seems reviled even by live-action Disney remake standards. The phrase "uncanny valley" is being used a lot.

It currently sits at a 59% on RT (not my favorite aggregator but still surprisingly low).


‘The Lion King’ Review: Disney’s Remake Is a Disastrous Plunge into the Uncanny Valley
by David Ehrlich
https://www.indiewire.com/2019/07/the-l ... 202157153/
Unfolding like the world's longest and least convincing deepfake, the new "Lion King" fatally misunderstands what once made Disney special. (D)

Be prepared for the photorealistic cruddiness of Disney’s pointless Lion King remake
by A.A. Dowd
https://film.avclub.com/be-prepared-for ... 1836271258
It’s as if every creative decision were subordinate to the film’s misguided insistence on realism, on keeping the mannerisms and movements of these magically intelligent creatures “believable.” (D+)

by A.O. Scott
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/movi ... eview.html
“The closer the movie gets to nature in its look, the more blatant, intrusive and purposeless its artifice seems. It might have worked better without songs or dialogue: surely the Disney wizards could have figured out how to spin an epic tale of royal succession and self-discovery through purely visual means.”