The Lion King
Any emotions felt during Jon Favreau’s “The Lion King” can be attributed to the music. The original songs by Elton John and Tim Rice remain as good as anything Disney gave us in that era of “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “Aladdin,” but it’s the way they were orchestrated, and complimented, by Hans Zimmer and his team of composers that gave them an energy and emotion unlike anything else in that timeframe. Save for one big misstep, the reproductions of those elements continue to cast their spell. It’s what they’re produced for that falls flat.
Favreau directed one of the best of Disney’s recent “live-action” adaptations of their animated films in 2016’s “The Jungle Book,” so it makes sense that they tapped him to directed their 1994 classic in the same vein. Part of the problem is, it’s a different beast than “The Jungle Book” is. Rob Minkoff and Roger Allers’s film may deal with real animals and a real landscape, but it’s animation style is far more stylized and expressionistic than the likes of “Jungle Book” or “Beauty and the Beast.” That makes the translation to “live-action” tricky, because you can’t just try and recreate the cel animated shot compositions and character designs and expect to elicit the same emotions in the audience. If you want to make it more grounded in reality, you’re going to lose a lot of the nuances that made the original film land with audiences. Plus, the attempts at syncing dialogue and voices with the mouths of the “life-like” CG animals is a big gamble, especially if you’re asking them to carry scenes, much less complicated musical numbers. This is a mess, and I’m not even sure how it could’ve gone better.
There’s no need to really go over the story- chances are, even if you didn’t watch the animated classic, which remains one of my favorite Disney films (even though I didn’t see it until years after it stormed the box-office). For the most part, the screenplay by Jeff Nathanson translates the narrative beat-for-beat, although it builds on scenes, and adds some, to stretch the film to what is a typical length for a “live-action” feature. Some of these will barely be noticed, but others really drag down the pacing of the story; there’s room for a new Beyoncé song called “Spirit” that throws the film’s musical voice out of focus (partially because it has a very different feel from the Rice and John songs- the new songs in the end credits have the same issue), and we watch the journey of some of Simba’s mane to Rafiki’s tree like it were the feather in the summer of ‘94’s other box-office behemoth, “Forrest Gump.” Tim Burton’s “Dumbo” had the same issue in expanding the original’s narrative to a more acceptable running time today, although it arguably made more egregious mistakes, in doing so.
The voice cast they brought in for this new version of “The Lion King” was one of the most promising parts of the whole venture. Gone are Matthew Broderick, Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane, Jeremy Irons and Cheech Marin, among others, and it’s kind of a mixed bag. As adult Simba and Nala, Donald Glover and Beyonce give you everything you hope for out of the characters- especially during “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?”- but neither is doing enough to get past the largely emotionless character animation. James Earl Jones is the biggest holdover from the original film, and his iconic voice as Mufasa is what we’ll remember most in how it brings weight to this story, even if the images (especially during the “Remember” scene) cannot match it. As Pumbaa and Timon, Seth Rogan and Billy Eichner probably fare the best of the newcomers (with John Oliver an ideal Zazu), and their characters probably get the liveliest animation that makes us appreciate the characters. As Scar, however, Chiwetel Ejiofor has the toughest job of the bunch. His Scar has far less bravado than Irons’s, which is not a bad choice for the character, but it also isn’t helped by character animation that is lifeless to look at. (It also doesn’t help that Scar’s big musical number, “Be Prepared,” was completely rewritten- partially because Ejiofor was, supposedly, not fit for the singing of it- and the staging is not as dramatic. Initially, the song was going to be left out due to the fascist nature of the original version. What we’re left with is a disappointment on every front.) This feels like a waste of a great cast, and it’s hard to fault them; they’re at the mercy of ill-advised choices across the board.
This has not been a fun movie to write about. Even though I didn’t see it in theatres in 1994- Disney was not a big part of my movie diet growing up- “The Lion King” is one of my very favorite Disney films of all-time, and I love so many of the people involved with this venture. I will always go to bat for Favreau because of “Swingers,” “Iron Man” and “Chef.” This cast is as good a recasting as you could ask for. And the whole thing is shot by Caleb Deschanel with a painter’s eye for detail and shot composition. But the idea of bringing “The Lion King” into a “real world” animal kingdom was always a risk, and the film comes up against some limitations it wasn’t able to get past in how to bring this story to life in an engaging and believable manner. In the end, any appreciation for this experience came down to Hans Zimmer. I always forget how great his Oscar-winning score for this movie is, how well the orchestrations of the songs bring new life to Tim Rice and Elton John’s songs, until I hear them again, and my emotions soar. Zimmer is to “The Lion King” as John Williams is to “Star Wars,” or Bernard Herrmann was to “Psycho.” Nobody else can tell that story better musically. When I listen to his work, I truly can say, “Hakuna Matata.” I wish I could say the same about Favreau’s film.
