Movie Review: The Lion King (2019)

Movie Review: The Lion King (2019)                                                                       1-17-20

Before I begin my review, I’d like to point out that this movie is animated and not live-action.

The Lion King is about a lion cub named Simba (LD McCrary as a cub, Donald Glover as an adult), who is destined to be king of the savannah. However, his evil uncle Scar (Chiwetel Ejiofor) wants to be king, so he kills King Mufasa (James Earl Jones) during a wildebeest stampede and blames Simba on it. Simba runs away and meets a meerkat and warthog named Timon (Billy Eichner) and Pumbaa (Seth Rogan), who teach him how to live a care-free life. However, Simba later discovers that he must fight Scar and reclaim his place as king.

Sound familiar? Well, that’s because Jon Favreau’s The Lion King is basically a shot-for-shot remake of the original 1994 classic. Yes, the computer animation is breathtaking, but the characters aren’t as expressive as their 2D counterparts. I know that in real life, most animals don’t have the muscles in their mouths necessary to smile or frown, but they still could have cocked their heads or wiggled their eyebrows.

Do you have any idea what Simba is feeling in this scene? I certainly don't.

Also, the songs feel unnecessary in this film: It’s just awkward seeing realistic animals singing.

Simba, Nala, and some other animals singing 'I Just Can't Wait To Be King'.

Like the remakes of Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin before it, this Lion King also had a lot of the humor drained out of the original film. The best moments of the movie are with Timon and Pumbaa, though that isn’t enough to save the movie.

Timon and Pumbaa singing 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight'.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’d rather watch The Lion King 1 1/2 over this! Yes, it’s a cash-grabbing direct-to-video sequel, but at least it knows it can’t live up to its predecessor! The movie knows it’s self-referential, and it uses every opportunity to sneak in some funny jokes.

In conclusion, stick with the original Lion King. This one may have earned over a billion and a half dollars at the box-office, but it just doesn’t compare to the original 1994 film. If you want to watch a good CGI movie set in Africa, watch 2013’s Khumba, which I will review in April.

Rating: 2 stars out of 5

PS. If you are reading this, Disney, please make sure Mulan stays true to the original movie while still feeling different. Try to make sure it sits comfortably on the same shelf as the remakes of Cinderella, The Jungle Book, and Pete's Dragon.

The DreamWorks That Never Were

Remember how in my '2020 in Animated Features' article, I talked about how DreamWorks cancelled two movies with potential? Well, today, I will be talking about two films that had potential: Me and My Shadow and BOO.

Me and My Shadow would've taken place in two different worlds: The human world and the shadow world. The human world would've been 3D, while the shadow world would've been 2D. The story would've been about a shadow named Stan, who was attached to a boring human named Stanley Grubb. Stan, however, yearns for a more exciting life, but when a crime in the shadow community puts both their lives in danger, Stan is forced to take control of Stanley, thrusting both of them into an adventure featuring a shadowy villain who intends to lead a rebellion against the human world. Long story short, the film was cancelled because of a variety of reasons, including having its release date changed, switch of directors, 4 box-office failures in a row, PDI being shut down, and DreamWorks co-founder Jeffery Katzenburg leaving the company in April 2016.

BOO, short for Bureau of Otherworldly Operations, was a cancelled DreamWorks film that would've been about two ghosts, a newbie and a veteran, who work at a sort of paranormal Men In Black, policing the afterlife and those who choose to abuse it. It was going to be released in July 2015, but because of the box-office failures of Rise of the Guardians, Turbo, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, and The Penguins of Madagascar, along with the closure of PDI, DreamWorks decided to give BOO the axe, despite the film being halfway finished.
To make matters worse, BOO director Tony Leondis left DreamWorks to work on The Emoji Movie. That's like Chris Wedge leaving production on the 2013 film Epic in favor of a movie about, say, Kinetix toys! Or Dan Scanlon leaving production on Onward to direct a movie about Beanie Babies!
If you're reading this, DreamWorks or Universal (who now owns DreamWorks's catalog), could you at least adapt BOO into a half-hour Halloween Netflix special? If you were able to resurrect Larrikins (another cancelled DreamWorks film) into the short film Bilby (which is included on the DVD and Blu-Ray release of How To Train Your Dragon 3), then you must have the talent and time to resurrect BOO into a Halloween special. I bet it could sit comfortably on the shelf alongside Scared Shrekless and Mutant Pumpkins From Outer Space (a Monsters vs Aliens TV special).
I will talk about Mutant Pumpkins From Outer Space in October, when I include it in my Top 10 Best Animated Halloween Specials countdown. On January 19th, I will post my much-anticipated review of Jon Favreau's The Lion King.

2020 in Animated Features

It's official. The 2010s are over, and it's the beginning of the 2020s. This year, Blue Sky Studios, who are now owned by Disney, will not release a new movie. Like DreamWorks, they are under new management. In this case, Disney Animation president Andrew Millstein will serve as co-president of Blue Sky. Their next film is Nimona, based on the web comic and graphic novel of the same name. It is set to be released on January 14th, 2022. Let's pray and hope that it doesn't end up getting cancelled like Gigantic.

Anyway, let's see what 2020 has in store for us in animated features!

In March, Pixar will release their next feature film, Onward. In a similar fashion to Zootopia, Onward will be set in a suburban town called New Mushroomton, populated by a menagerie of mythical creatures like centaurs, gnomes, mermaids, fairies, and elves. Two elf brothers, Ian and Barley Lightfoot, discover an old wizard's staff with a message from their dad, who died when they were too young to remember him. In this note are instructions for a magical spell that could resurrect their father for 24 hours. However, the spell doesn't work at first, so Ian and Barely go on the quest of a lifetime. My main concern is that this movie will be released three weeks before the release of Mulan and be overshadowed by it.

In April, the colorful happy Smurf-like creatures return for an all-new adventure called Trolls: World Tour. In this film, Poppy learns that there are more Trolls out there that focus on different kinds of music. Queen Barb, a rock & roll Troll, wants to unite the Six Strings so she can destroy all music except rock. To stop her, Poppy and the gang have to travel all over the world to unite all the Trolls. I'm baffled that DreamWorks greenlit a sequel to Trolls, which didn't even become one of the top 5 highest-grossing animated movies of 2016, yet they cancelled two projects that sounded like they had potential.* Not to mention that there's already a Trolls TV special and a Netflix series.

There will be two new animated movies in May. The first, from Warner Animation Group, the creators of The LEGO Movies, Storks, and Smallfoot, comes Scoob! It will be a CGI reboot of the world-famous mystery-solving mutt Scooby-Doo. The animation for Scoob will be done at Reel FX, the same studio behind Free Birds, The Book of Life, and Uglydolls. Too bad neither Grey Griffen or Kate Micucci, the modern day voice actresses of Daphne Blake and Velma Dinkley, won't return.

The second will be SpongeBob's third feature film, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run. In this movie, when SpongeBob's pet snail Gary goes missing, he and Patrick go on an adventure across the ocean floor to find him. Instead of being 2D like the previous films, Sponge on the Run will be all CGI.

In June, from Pete Docter (Monsters Inc, Up, Inside Out) comes Pixar's 23rd feature film Soul. In this film, a musician who lost his passion for music is transported out of his body, and must find his way back with the help of an infant soul who is learning about herself.

In July, the popular (and annoying) banana-loving Twinkies will return for an all-new movie called Minions 2: The Rise of Gru. Not much is known about this movie yet, though one thing is certain: I'm 98% sure that I'll skip it and see Disney's Jungle Cruise instead (if it's worth seeing).

September will be the release of Sony Pictures Animation's next endeavor after The Angry Birds Movie 2 (they weren't involved with the first one), The Mitchells vs the Machines. The sci-fi comedy envisions a world in which technology suddenly turns on humanity, interrupting a dysfunctional family’s road trip. In the producers' chair are Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the same duo behind Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, The LEGO Movie, and Spider-Verse.

In November, Disney will release their 59th (yes, I counted) animated movie Raya and the Last Dragon. In a realm known as Lumandra, a reimagined Earth inhabited by an ancient civilization, a female warrior named Raya is determined to find the last dragon. This movie will be the directorial debut of Paul Briggs, Deam Wellins, and John Ripa, who have been in the animation industry for more than 20 years.

And finally, in December, the prehistoric family from a past that never existed return for The Croods 2. In this film, the Croods are challenged by a rival family called the Bettermans, who claim to be better and more evolved. Original Croods directors Chris Sanders and Kirk DeMicco do not return, since Sanders was busy with the live-action film Call of the Wild, while DeMicco is busy with one of Sony's upcoming animated projects, Vivo. Instead, Joel Crawford, storyboard artist on Bee Movie, the Kung Fu Panda trilogy, and Rise of the Guardians, and director of Trolls Holiday, will be directing. Of all the new animated movies coming this year, I'm most excited for Onward, Scoob, and Soul. I also might see Raya and the Last Dragon if the teaser trailer looks any good. Once again, there will be more animated films than the ones listed above that will premiere this year, but these were the ones I wanted to cover.
I'm sorry that there's no poster for The Croods 2 shown here. As I am typing this, there are no posters or sneak peak art for the film, yet.

*The two cancelled DreamWorks projects I referred to earlier are Me and My Shadow and Bureau of Otherworldly Observations (BOO for short). I will talk about both of them on January 8th. Update! 3-5-20: The Mitchells vs the Machines is now called Connected, and will be released September 18th, 2020. Here's a trailer below. https://www.imdb.com/video/vi3669999129?playlistId=tt7979580&ref_=tt_ov_vi