At last I got the chance to see this highly anticipated movie. When it premiered in Indonesia last week, my wife and I went for a holiday trip till Sunday. And just when I thought I could see it on Monday, I was assigned for business trip which lasted till Wednesday. So we could only see this last night. We decided to see it in a Dobly Atmos theater to enjoy the sounds better.
As I believe that most people have either seen this movie or the original animated version, I would not go into details of the story and just straight to my personal views.
This movie was just as I expected from the glimpses of scenes I saw in the trailer. The visual effects were stunning and the cinematography was absolutely gorgeous. The jungle's scenery and the real life-like various animals truly made us feel like we were in the actual forest in Africa. During the whole movie, my wife and I could not help but feel in awe of how great jobs the special effects team had done in order to bring this movie to life.
Now if you had seen the original movie like my wife and I did, you would also realize that the film felt really similar to the animated version. There were only few scenes which were not in the original film but they did not change the story or tone of the movie at all. I think some of those were the scenes involving new songs like The Lion Sleeps Tonight, or Spirit which was sung by none other than Beyoncé who also provided the voice of adult Nala.
Aside from her, the movie was filled with a large ensemble cast. Adult Simba was voiced by Donald Glover (Solo: A Star Wars Story, The Lazarus Effect etc) while the young Simba was voiced by a singer JD McCrary which would explain his natural singing. Other cast included Chiwetel Ejiofor (Doctor Strange, Salt etc) as Simba's uncle Scar, John Oliver (Wonder Park) as the talkative but loyal Zazu, but the ones who really made our day would definitely be the characters of Pumbaa (Seth Rogen - Long Shot, Neighbors etc) and Timon (comedian Billy Eichner). They were such lovable characters that whenever they showed up, we could not help but be entertained and laughed or at least chuckled, and that song Hakuna Matata sung by them was such a classic.
The one cast that I was not personally really satisfied was James Earl Jones as the voice of Simba's father Mufasa, which was really odd since he actually reprise his role from the original movie. I do not know why but his voice in here did not seem heavy enough and felt a little bit lack of authoritative figure. I thought his voice in the 1994 animated movie was a lot heavier and really suit his character then. But overall, the voice cast were pretty amazing.
Oh there was one thing that I did not notice at first until my wife highlighted it, was the lack of expressions on the face of the characters, unlike in the animated version. Probably it was a bit more difficult to make them so using computer (which would be strange considering they made such a great job in making everything seem right). Or was it the choice of the director Jon Favreau? I guess we'll never know the reason. In case you are not aware, he was director of many successful movies such as Elf, Iron Man and including The Jungle Book (which also featured a lot of "life" animals using computer animation technique).
Now I mentioned above that the story did not deviate a lot with the original movie. This could be a positive or negative point depending on the way you look at it. Fans of the original movie would certainly love it as it would bring nostalgic feeling (like in the case of my wife who could not stop her tears several times whenever there were scenes she loved in the 1994 version). But for people who wanted to see something different, it might feel lacking a bit of creativity.
As a "live version" remake of a classic animated Disney movie, this one certainly was entertaining for me and my wife. We enjoyed the movie and we really loved the way they made the characters into life, even if their face were a bit expressionless, but the power of the cast managed to make up for it. The songs were great and featured few new songs as well. Although I still preferred the original version of Can You Feel The Love Tonight? by Elton John. There were also the names of Pharell Williams and famous Hans Zimmer as the composers of this movie. Oh and for me who is not a major fan of musical, this one did not overwhelm me because for a duration of 118 minutes, the movie was not almost constantly having songs after songs like in the case of other musical such as Mary Poppins Returns, so I was still able to enjoy it a lot. And before I forgot, we waited till the movie finished and there was no mid or end credit scenes, except just to listen to some of the songs.
Overall, I thought this was a wonderful and lovely movie. I liked the special effects, the beautiful scenery, the voice cast and the songs. It is a movie safe for all ages and should be entertaining for families and even adults. You could enjoy this as a great live version remake of an animated movie and have the nostalgic feeling of seeing it again in theaters, or you could just enjoy the great story of a boy who would be king. If you have not seen this movie yet, just go and have fun watching it while it is still available.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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