Movie Review Mondays!

Happy Monday everyone and welcome to a new (hopefully weekly series) I'm starting.

Pretty self explanatory, but Mondays are now Movie Review Mondays- where I review and give my thoughts on a film I've watched recently, maybe gush about one of my favorites, or just rant about a particularly bad one.

This first week will of course go to a new release- the live action Lion King (2019)!

The original animated film was SO good. A masterpiece and instant classic to the children who grew up with it (including me).

I was really excited hearing that it was being made into a live action. The composer, Hans Zimmer, is my favorite and returned to do the new score, it was casting an group of actors, and the CGI promised to be a spectacle (side note though, is it really live action if it's just CGI?)

I thought it was great! It may not have the same magic as the original but it holds its own, and for good reason.

The score was amazing, in some parts it almost sounded like Zimmer actually just kept a few of the same measures of music from the original then added or modified some things to beef it up. I liked the modifications of some of the songs to fit this film better, like Scar's song being more menacing and theatrical, Just Can't Wait to Be King was also more fun and had a long instrumental period to allow Simba and Nala to play around the waterhole and let the animals be animals (instead of, you know, climbing on each other like it's Cirque Du Soliel as in the original). My only grumble was replacing the instrumental track of Simba running back home with a new song by Beyoncé, it seemed like an obvious "we have Beyoncé as a cast member, let's get her to sing a song!" grab (I'm biased though, admittedly, I'm not really a fan).

I thought the cast did a really good job. Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner did well as Timon and Pumba, even singing. I was presently surprised by how much I enjoyed Chiwetel Ejiofor as Scar, his voice was great for the part. The only thing I would change is Beyoncé's casting. I just feel she is too well known as herself that when you hear her, you think "Oh, it's Beyoncé!" and it slightly ruins that character (again, that's probably just my bias).

The main part one would go see this film over the original for is the amazing effects of the animals. Every part, place, and character just comes off as so real. They may not have the most expressive faces because of how life-like they are, but it helps to really make you believe they're real animals. From Pumbaa and his hairy face, to Timone and the clear characteristics of a meercat, to the lions fighting at the end- they're all convincing. I even caught myself trying to tell myself it's not real. It's even cooler when you can see the clear time and effort it took the artists to study the animals in the first place then translate that into animation. Amazing. A++

Overall, I will admit that this one somehow doesn't capture the magic of the original. My main theory for this? Making the animals faces so real doesn't allow for them to show emotion so clearly, and it unfortunately takes away from the emotional punch of the scene translating to the audience.

I still would gladly watch the remake again and again, though it probably would not be chosen over the original to watch instead.

Overall Grade: A