by Panpardus » July 20th, 2019, 3:19 am
Mixed bag, mostly leans on "different but generally okay" compared to the original. Overall it feels more grounded and realistic by virtue of the medium, and that really does elevate some aspects of the story above the original, at least for me, particularly the action scenes and some of the scenery shots. If I had access to both on home release, I'd probably go back and forth between the two fairly evenly when I felt like watching The Lion King because there's different things to like in both versions.
The new dialogue is fine and works well. There's some interesting backstory and characterization implications in there that I really wish they'd explored further -- the implied love triangle between Mufasa, Scar, and Sarabi, and Shenzi v. Nala could've used further fleshing out to make their implied feud more compelling -- but it's fine for what it is. I appreciate it more than the Broadway show in that regard, since that one is almost exactly word-for-word except for the added scenes and songs.
Voice acting and body language is a big part of this, and it generally works fairly well in combination with the facial expression the characters do have. The only time I actually found it jarring (aside from that long-take with adult Simba during "Hakuna Matata") was when Simba was crying over Mufasa. I like that they made his breathing more rapid (subtle detail but nice) and JD McCrary's more emphatic voice acting actually got to me a bit more than the original, but they kept doing close-ups on his face and there really wasn't much going on there, not enough to express the emotion that was being conveyed with everything else. I kept thinking "Cut away, cut away, abort the face shot!" during those bits. Otherwise, I gotta say it either worked or I didn't mind most of the little discrepancies I did catch.
I actually liked the musical numbers for the most part. "Circle of Life" was about the same for me as the original; "Just Can't Wait to be King" was surprisingly good in terms of how they handled the onscreen action and keeping things realistically playful and visually engaging, so I consider that a win; "Be Prepared" was quite different (which I expected) and doesn't hold a candle to the original, although it works for the scene; "Hakuna Matata" is about the same for me, with the plus being Donald Glover's singing and the Timon & Pumbaa jokes, the drawback being Pumbaa's not-so-great singing when he needed to carry a tune; "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" was probably the most improved of all the original songs, catchier and actually pretty fun to watch; "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" was about the same as the original for me; "Spirit" was a nice little new addition and I like how Zimmer incorporated it into the score, although I'm still a bit disappointed that it wasn't a new song performed by one of the characters, especially since there's a beautiful song on The Lion King: The Gift that would fit perfectly as a Nala song ("Otherside").
Overall I'm voting for "just as good but different", or whatever the functional poll option for that is.