“THE LION KING” My rating: B-
118 minutes | MPAA rating: PG
The original 1994 “Lion King” was classic Disney animation featuring hand drawn backgrounds and characters — or if computers sometimes were used, at least the final product appeared to be hand drawn.
A quarter century later we get a “Lion King” redux done in a live-action format…though one cannot begin to figure out what (if anything) is live and what rendered through the ones and zeroes of digital animation.
There are moments, especially early on, when Jon Favreau’s updating of the beloved yarn offers such a sumptuous visual feast that the eye and mind struggle to take it all in.
Against an absolutely believable African landscape lifelike lions, elephants, impalas, hyenas and other creatures do their things. Your senses tell you that these are real animals filmed in action (after all, the great Caleb Deschenal — “The Black Stallion,” “The Right Stuff,” “The Passion of the Christ” — is credited as cinematographer)…except that invariably these creatures do something no animal ever could.
A lion tamer with years to refine his act could never get actual big cats to hit their marks, strike perfect poses and execute complicated action sequences. Not to mention move their mouths to utter dialogue in human voices.
Indeed, I have no idea how this was done. Were live animals filmed and then digitally diddled to make them do the impossible? Do the backgrounds even exist? Or were they built entirely in the computer?
Let it be said up front that “The Lion King” is one of the most amazing-looking films of all time. The work Favreau did a couple of years back on the similarly-rendered “Jungle Book” looks a bit primitive by comparison.
Butler's Cinema Scene 