At this point, it feels almost futile to belabour the creative laziness of Disney’s penchant of turning their animated hits into “live-action” remakes. And, so to preface this review with all the reasons the 2019 “live-action” version of “The Lion King” is aggressively inferior to its 1994 animated predecessor is unnecessary. The fact that Jon Favreau’s 2019 version is inferior to the original isn’t exactly the point as it presents enough to frustrate viewers on its own terms, even when it presents itself as the natural state of progression in Disney’s monopoly on popular cinema.
The simple plot is familiar to most – Simba, the lion prince, is framed by his jealous Uncle Scar for the death of his noble father Mufasa. Scar usurps the throne, forcing his nephew into exile until he returns to claim his throne. Just a cursory knowledge of this story immediately identifies where this new version seems inevitably doomed. For, unlike its 1994 counterpart, “The Lion King” is no longer a lively, colourful smorgasbord of hand-drawn animation. Instead, it is a “live-action” reimagination of that film, “live-action” meaning computer-animation to present a photorealistic rendering of the animals. So, it’s not exactly live-action, it’s just animated to seem like live-action. For, surely, the best way to improve an animated musical about a regicide and vengeance in a lion pride is by matching this very unrealistic story with stolidly realistic animals.
So, immediately “The Lion King” seems victim of an intense bifurcation. While Favreau appears obsessively invested in dourness as realism, with the animals animated to seem as realistically lion-esque as possible, the story is a musical, which is a form antithetical to realism, to say nothing of the talking animals. For this to work, there must be some great thesis that the film hopes to offload. And, “The Lion King” has no thesis. This is the third Disney remake of an animated film this year, and it’s easily the worst of the lot, especially for its inability to justify its existence. Tim Burton’s “Dumbo” was adamant about its animal preservation ethos, and Guy Ritchie’s “Aladdin” emphasised its buddy comedy roots, but “The Lion King” has nothing clear to announce about itself. Asked to justify its existence, it only offers a photorealistic image of a dour-looking lion. And there’s not much one can eke out from that. Doesn’t this look like a real lion? Sure. But to what end?
But, Favreau’s dependence on photorealism to not just authenticate style but justify value is indicative of Disney’s own concern with the idea of craft without meaning to justify significance. Beyond my own visceral rejection of realism as the apex of any art form, the idea that photorealism as apex of art in this particular story seems senseless. The beauty of the hand-drawn animation of the 1994 animation is the way it presents a distinctly human story (regicide, succession, destiny) in animal form, with animals more expressive than perhaps even actual humans. To replace the nuance of the animated animals with photorealistic lions, an animal not exactly legendary for its emotive facial features, is so obviously missing the very value of its creation, I almost can’t believe that anyone thought this was a good idea. But, clearly someone did and clearly that person could not be completely wrong, judging from the packed crowd I saw it with. All around me, every other line of the film was foretold by the adults who had clearly seen it before and took comfort in knowing what would come.
And, that’s exactly what “The Lion King” offers – palimpsest as creation, memory as identity. It’s exhausting. It’s difficult not to feel resentful, not at the audiences for their passive engagement with the familiar but at the studio-heads and the corporation at their disinclination to even consider something new. But in some ways, this feels like the natural apex of Disney in the 21st century: film as more product than art, soulless methodical creation rather than spontaneous and earnest creation. The photorealistic Africa of the film looks real but it also looks really unbecoming, where brown dunness pervades everything. And it doesn’t sound much better, from the sound-mixing, which cannot quite make the voices work in tandem with the surrounding sounds or the voice-actors who never feel as invested in their own stories. This is truest of John Oliver as the chatty Zazu, who is horrifying terrible.
The extended length only serves to emphasise the issues of the initial story. The conservative ideology of “The Lion King” feels even more troublesome when its thin story is stretched beyond its limit to two hours for no reason. Adult Simba registers even less as a hero to save the day, than an aimless adult nudged into place by the powers that be. Donald Glover, the second-worst of the cast, doesn’t help with his voice-work. At the end of it, we want to ask what it was all for. Favreau and his team don’t seem to know, other than this is the blueprint they are following, so this is the way the story will go. And it’s not a good reason. Things don’t happen here as part of a developing crisis, whether it’s Scar’s resentment, Mufasa’s majesty or the romance of Nala and Simba. Instead, they happen because the story says it should. This isn’t movie magic, it’s automated photorealistic desolation.
It’s summed up in that iconic action that the original film is best remembered for: Rafiki thrusting baby Simba and then Simba’s child up to the sky in that act of animal majesty. In this version, Rafiki’s trenchant thrust seems more like a tentative one. It’s likely the nature of the CGI photorealism. Real animals just can’t move like animated ones. They cannot dance in the musical numbers. They cannot glower with majesty. They cannot mourn with their eyes. And they cannot use their bodies to imply something revolutionary. So, in the climax of ‘The Circle of Life,’ when that photorealistic monkey takes that photorealistic lion cub and thrusts him into the air, what should be a moment of great majesty just comes across as clumsy manipulation. Which just about sums up the desultory results of “The Lion King”.
“The Lion King” is currently playing at local theatres.
