So, like.. I went to see it bc I had plans to go see it for a few weeks now. I wanted to review it here with y'all.
Honestly?? Not that bad. A lot could be fixed. I had problems with it though and since we all love to feed on negativity, I'm gonna share my thoughts.
In case you don't wanna hear my bad thoughts and comparisons of the film before watching it
The voice-acting and the music carry the emotion of the scenes rather than full body expressions of the characters. The faces are very stiff a lot of the time, and I get the feeling it's animated that way bc real animals aren't able to express much there. This is fine, I get it, but the body language, on the other hand.. is somewhat lacking in my opinion. A lot of animal emotion is conveyed through body movements, so if they could've captured that, the scenes would've worked better for me.
Speaking of movement, that was one other thing that bugged me throughout the movie somewhat. Not of the animals feel heavy enough in their movements, and I'm not sure if it's because of the animation, visual effects, or the sound design.. but something's off. There's no weight to them, and it's the most noticeable for me in the Hakuna Matata scene where a more grown Simba jumps off a log while they're strolling through the jungle or whatever. It just looked like he floated down rather than falling. Smaller animals though, not as much of an issue.
Cinematography and colors. It borrows a lot from the animated film in terms of shots. Some of which was very jarring in a realistic setting. The zoomout on Simba crying out for his dad, Timon getting a very close-up shot of his face as he's screaming, Mufasa falling in slow-motion.. I don't really remember anything actually working in favor of being live-action. The colors of scenes stay within realism too. "Can't Wait to be King" was very surreal with color choices in the animation, same with "Be Prepared", but the colors in live-action are very.. safe. The colors in the scenes don't stray too far from how they'd normally work in real life.
They took out Rafiki smacking Simba. Why? I dunno. It was one of my favorite scenes. Ugh.
Assuming you've read my thoughts, that's as much as I'll say.
I haven't seen The Lion King in forever, but watching this? It's not the animated film, but it's still decent. Timon and Pumbaa still steal the show. The soundtrack is as fantastic as ever, though I can't tell if they reused the original one or if they rearranged some songs. Again, it's been a while. I'm not the best judge of it, but I went in expecting the worst, and left just satisfied enough. If you're gonna watch this version, go with low standards, a long time of not seeing the original, and/or the want to compare the two versions lol