The Lion King

We all love a good story. Stories are the bedrock of our culture and tell our history. We’ll tell the same stories over and over again and pass them down generations.

Disney know this and Disney are one of the great exponents of storytelling. Morality tales and fables both original and interpreted that delight both kids and adults in equal measure.

Their 'Operation Remake' of recent times is confirmation that these stories all have a place in our hearts with big box office returns for each of them, if not the critical adoration their animated counterparts achieved.

Arguably, the most critically successful of the rehashed versions was Jon Favreau’s dark The Jungle Book and it’s a formula the Mouse House have banked on again for their much-anticipated remake of one of their most loved animations: The Lion King.

An animated remake of an animated film which used anthropomorphic animals to loosely tell the story of Hamlet. What a world we live in.

Favreau is again behind the lens on this one and succeeds as he did before in injecting a level of grit to the story and suitably raising the stakes to suit this ‘real world’ interpretation. The CGI is immaculate and you’ll swear some of the scenes were done for real. The fact that everything is still achieved via the computer screen, though, does keep a sense of charm from the original which some of the live action remakes haven’t possessed.

It’s fair to say that it doesn’t usurp the beloved Disney classic but it comes the closest to achieving it. The voice cast are all outstanding with nary a weak link in sight and they even took influence from my previous review by including a sly, and very funny, nod to another one of their films with a cracking Beauty And The Beast reference. In fact, the whole film, despite its sombre tone, is very funny.

Bizarrely though, as lovely as it all is and as great as it sounds to have Beyonce and Childish Gambino on the songs, the musical sequences fall a little flat on the big screen. The sound isn’t huge and it lacks a little oomph and production which is inexcusable given the continued success of the stage show.

On the whole though, this is as good as Disney’s remakes have gotten so far and hopefully bodes well for further success moving forward. Not quite the King but a worthy successor.

4 stars ****