O Rei Leão

Os animadores fizeram um excelente trabalho em termos de representação autêntica dos seres vivos e da natureza, por isso a animação é absolutamente deslumbrante e muitas tomadas parecem ser de documentários sobre a natureza. O problema consiste no facto de que O Rei Leão não é um documentário da savana africana, mas um musical da Disney em que os animais falam e cantam, o que não se enquadra bem com a animação foto-realista. Além disso, a fim de alcançar a maior verosimilhança possível, dos personagens animais foram eliminados todas as expressões faciais «humanas», com o resultado de que o único portador de emoção no seu diálogo é a voz dos seus dobradores, que não podem fazer o trabalho por si sós sem o apoio dos rostos dos animais. A história (basicamente Hamlet) não é diferente da versão animada (é apenas meia hora mais longa) e ainda é obviamente fantástica, só não tem muito que o surpreender se tiver visto O Rei Leão original. O novo Rei Leão é, portanto, apenas uma cópia tecnologicamente perfeita, mas sem alma do seu predecessor muito melhor. (03/10/2020)

A new version of the classic Disney story about Simba, who grew from a little lion cub into the king of animals and avenged his father's death. The new Lion King looks incredibly realistic, but the moment the animals start talking and singing, it starts to fall apart. The fairytale atmosphere where no one bothered with the chatty animals is gone, and in its new form it all feels a bit out of place. Still, it's an inoffensive adventure that will appeal to older viewers with its nostalgia and younger ones with its songs and lots of animals. But it is far from an exceptional film. (23/07/2019)

Jon Favreau got probably excited about new animation technology because after beautiful The Jungle Book he filmed  no less amazing The Lion King. And even though the story is well known and you heard the music a hundred times, it is still brilliant and I was captivated by this remake. And it is precisely this technology that makes me feel as if real living creatures were wandering through that bush. I was even horrified a little by the thought I had while watching this movie that the kids in the future might watch this kind of movies and think what a wonderful world we used to have... (24/12/2019)

I felt as uncomfortable watching the new Lion King as I would have felt watching natural history documentaries with narration that jokingly imitates the “voices” of animals. At the same time, it is an inordinately long (and drawn-out) film, very dark (the hyenas could sign up for a horror-movie casting call) and verbose, i.e. not very suitable for younger viewers who would most likely appreciate the talking fauna. I very much enjoyed Caleb Deschanel’s camera work, which was adapted to the characters’ point of view, and one wordless scene including the odyssey of a dung beetle with a ball of giraffe droppings. Otherwise, a negative feeling of inappropriateness predominated. When you see a photo-realistically animated (and talking) warthog and a (talking) meerkat tame a (talking) lion cub and turn it into an entomophage, it is more disturbing than funny or cute. Whereas I can still be impressed by the original to this day, the reboot just makes me want to cry over the idea that it will be a huge commercial hit and Disney will continue to churn out such empty, asexual, absolutely unsurprising remakes of its successful films. The Jungle Book had a faster pace and more convincing characters, and it did not merely copy the original film, but developed it in a meaningful manner. It was unique in some way. Conversely, The Lion King is only a soulless imitation, perhaps technologically perfect, but almost worthless artistically. 50% (18/07/2019)

The essence of sterility. Beautiful yet pointless. I wonder what Favreau's role as director was. It couldn't have been more than sending out two mass emails: one to the actors "put on The Lion King and say the same thing", and the other to the thousands of hopefuls behind the rendering computers "put on The Lion King, forget the emotions in the faces and otherwise do the same thing using CGI and share the result with me in a few years". There is not a single ounce of invention, no interpretation, let alone an original idea. On the other hand, the glitz is so intoxicating and the original material and music so catchy that if you have to take your kids to see it, at least it won’t a complete waste of time. (02/08/2019)