Steve Reviews: The Lion King (2019)

[Music] honestly guys what you saw just there was better than the whole 2019 film so I just got back from seeing the Lion King after paying an extortion at 13 pound 75 to go see at the Odeon CFC Odeon 13 pounds 75 that's like 13 and three-quarter items I could have bought from pound land and I can guarantee any one of those items would have bought me more entertainment value than this film which I guess was the thought process of many other people as the screen I was in I would say only about 15 percent of the seats were taken which considering this was a Friday shown at 5:00 p.m. on the first day of release in the UK that's a shockingly low number not that I was complaining though as it allowed me to move from my standard seat up to one of the many available premiere seats yeah sucker Odeon I win now let me just start off by saying that I'm actually not a huge hater of these live-action remakes of classic Disney films as even though they are in nowhere near comparable to the quality of the originals they at least offer something different like a twist on the old narrative or a new take on a character just to spice things up a bit not always done for the better but at least they try this film is quite literally a 95 percent shot-for-shot remake of the original with no detachment from the original narrative whatsoever I was hoping they may bring focus on elements which got glossed over in the original maybe a little more focus on how the pride slowly falls apart under scars rule and the suffering he brings to the land maybe a little more focus on scars backstory growing up in the shadow of Mufasa Disney seems to love this recent trend of making classic villains more complex and sympathetic so why not take advantage of that with a character like scar who have a little exploration could actually be a deep and complex character show how he was always treated second-best and why this led to him resenting his brother much show us how because of that rejection he found a mutual bond with the hyenas who were also treated as second-class citizens in the pride lands even show us some back story of how he got his name I can't imagine that was a name given to him the moment he was born seen as how it's highly unlikely that he was born with a scar on his head especially soon as how the parents named the other child in fossa which quite literally translates into king like if I was scar and that was the case yeah I'd be pretty pissed off to compare this to the Jungle Book remake which despite its flaws at least changed up its narrative borrowing more elements from the book adding more focus to characters previously glossed over and altering the traits of existing characters whether you loved or hated those changes at least they tried something different narrative reasons aside though there's another key issue as to why this film doesn't work as a shot-for-shot remake and that's the fact that the CGI doesn't work for it now don't get me wrong I will admit the CGI is impressive and the fur textures and backgrounds look incredibly realistic so props to the team who did that but that is also the issue they went for an ultra realistic aesthetic and that creates a lot of limitations see with 2d animation you have a lot of freedom in terms of design and stylization character proportions and facial expressions can change on a dime to represent emotions even the background can completely change its palette to convey a certain mood and create atmosphere with a CGI remake that is going for a realism look you don't have this flexibility see most animals in real life don't have expressive faces like humans do as it's not a method in which they communicate emotion so to keep a CGI animal looking realistic you can't squash and stretch the face to express anger sadness or joy it just wouldn't look right as a result the characters in this film hold pretty much the same expression throughout the entire film when Simba is expressing joy he looks like this when Simba is expressing fear he looks like this when Simba is expressing sadness he looks like this you may have seen that scene that got leaked online which shows a comparison shot of Simba watching his father falling to his death in the animated film he displays a look of absolute terror in the remake he looks like a cat simply meow for a bowl of milk honestly that clip I showed at the start of the review offered Simba more emotion in those low-budget three seconds than in the entirety of this film I think the two characters that suffer the worse from this limitation are Timon and scar scars facial expressions would highlight his scheming and deceitful personality now just reduced to a blank face - moans exaggerated facial expressions which show off his Lau personality and provide a lot of comedy now reduce to this which is a shame actually because for the most part I think the new voice cast did a pretty good job nice to see mufasa's voice actor James Earl Jones returned to his role and the voices for scar and Simba I actually quite liked but as was the same problem that I highlighted with the Watership Down remake it doesn't matter how talented your voice actors are if the characters their voicing look like stiff wooden boards the emotion doesn't feel real and the audience just won't connect with them this effect is only amplified further with the fact that movement also has to be limited to compensate for the realism no anthropomorphic hand movements to highlight scars scheming action shots of animals fighting or chasing one another so it was incredibly slow and unaccelerated you can't even have Rafiki jumping around and doing all these ninja [ __ ] anymore speaking of Rafiki you know that scene in the original where Rafiki is absolutely livid in his tree after he hears about Simba's death well you know what he does and the remake he lets out a Tut I kid you not he literally goes yeah your best friend is dead along with his only son and now scar has taken over the kingdom with his army of evil hyenas and your reaction is honestly at this point they may as well have just filmed live-action animals and digitally added in lip movement over the top just like they did in the movie pride at least then you appreciate the efforts of taking normal shots of animals and trying to weave a narrative out of them and the fact that you know what you've seen on screen is actually there even as I was leaving the cinema I could hear people talking about what they had just seen and the general consensus was it was okay but not as good as I thought it would be with the exception of one chavvy teenaged couple I was sat behind who thought it was [ __ ] well good then again this is the same couple who after seen the trailer for the new cat's film the guy leant over to his girlfriend and said Albert luck films gonna have a little [ __ ] in it to which she burst out laughing like a warthog at best you could say Disney was simply being lazy with his film hoping that the nostalgic pull of the original would be enough to draw in audiences at worst they were being ignorant no that's ignorant thinking that the 2d animation is such a dead and inferior median that people would flock to the cinema to see their once beloved film but now new and improved reinforcing this idea that CGI is the dominant art form and that even the best of 2d animations can be thwarted if they're simply remade with modern computer graphics I mean if anything it's more interesting to see a CGI film get were made back into 2d take the animated remake of Shrek for example yes this was done as more of a joke than a serious box-office release but it's a shot-for-shot remake of the original but instead using various styles of 2d animation and funny enough it actually works because it's visually stimulating and brings something different to the original product and my final thing I'm gonna hate on this film is how it shares the same title as the original so once again if we want to search the Lion King we're gonna have to start stating the year of release The Lion King perhaps they should have just called it the Lion King because you know it's a sham

Channel: Steve Reviews

Views: 568,419

Rating: 4.7496262 out of 5

Keywords: steve reviews, the lion king, the lion king 2019, the lion king 2019 review, disney live action movies, review, live action lion king, lion king comparison

Id: 8frL0jN5Jko

Length: 8min 55sec (535 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 21 2019