The Lion King (2019)

The Lion King is a 2019 American musical drama film directed and produced by Jon Favreau, written by Jeff Nathanson, and produced by Walt Disney Pictures. It is a photo-realistic computer-animated remake of Disney's traditionally-animated 1994 film of the same name. It premiered in Hollywood on July 9, 2019 and was theatrically released in the United States on July 19, 2019.

In September 2020, it was confirmed that a follow-up film was in development with Barry Jenkins, the director of Moonlight, attached to direct. A prequel named Mufasa: The Lion King will be released on July 5, 2024.

Why It's STILL Disney At Their Best

 * 1) The score by Hans Zimmer is decent, although some of the tracks are superior over in the original film. Same for the updated songs are decent, except for "Be Prepared" performed by Chiwetel Ejiofor.
 * 2) * Speaking of the songs, the new song, "Spirit" performed by Beyoncé is also decent as well.
 * 3) * If you can hear closely, "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" takes elements from the broadway version of the song, which is a nice touch.
 * 4) Despite the given flaws, the CGI is pretty good, and all the main characters along with the other animals (including some that were changed in the film) are very accurate-looking to their species. Even the animated movements for the real-life animals are tremendous.
 * 5) * On the top of that, Pumbaa as a piglet (in this film) looks very cute.
 * 6) * Likewise, even through it barely showing any expression or emotion, it pulled off the idea of a realistic animal version of the original film well enough.
 * 7) * Baby Simba is still cute.
 * 8) Decent scenery in some scenes, especially the beginning and the ending.
 * 9) The hyenas, particularly Shenzi, are more powerful, menacing and terrifying than in the original film, despite having lost a bit of their charm.
 * 10) * In particular, Scar's death in this film manages to be very faithful to the original, but also manages to be much more terrifying than the original version, since he fights the hyenas back before being slaughtered and delivering a terrifying scream before dying.
 * 11) Despite the bland and poor vocal acting, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen make for a surprisingly good vocal performance as Timon and Pumbaa, and it's great that James Earl Jones came back as Mufasa after 25 years.
 * 12) There are some unintentionally funny moments as mentioned above.