Live-action remakes of its animated classics have really become Disney’s thing the past half-decade. If you want a good movie though there needs to be more inspiration behind it than “We want to milk our existing property and make more money.”

Aladdin.…Oh God, I just reviewed it. Please don’t make me relive that again.

Maleficent had a goal – I’ll give it that. Namely “Do for Maleficent what Wicked did for the Wicked Witch: tell the story from her side.” Unfortunately the execution was totally botched. Seemed like the big corporate giant didn’t want a lead character who was AT ALL unsympathetic so they changed the story completely and in the process made it boring garbage.

Beauty and the Beast tried to justify its existence by adding a bunch of extra stuff and by trying to explain some plot holes. The latter purpose was just dumb; the former stretched out the film without contributing anything memorable.

Dumbo was similar, except it added a whole separate movie at the end. You can here reread my whole review and also see the opinions I just reiterated for those last two movies.

You’ll also see my thoughts there on Cinderella. Cinderella I loved because it had a strong purpose – remake the movie without the emphasis on the mice so you can fit a lot more character development for the humans into a crisp running time. As such, things like showing the evil stepmother’s vulnerability or having Cinderella and the prince meet and develop real rapport before falling in love didn’t feel forced at all; they worked really well. I attribute a lot of that to Kenneth Branagh’s direction. That was the only worthwhile one of these remakes.

Well, the only worthwhile one until now! Hmm, it seems like next time Disney does one of these remakes it needs to hire a famous actor who has directed a great movie in the MCU! I talked about how well Branagh did with Thor and Jon Favreau did with Iron Man. Now Favreau (who also gave us my favorite Christmas movie ever, Elf) shines once more.

This was the first movie for which I wrote a quick review before my in-depth one, as I saw it the very first night and wanted to get the word out. Here’s what I said:

Wow. Unlike previous live-action adaptations of Disney animated classics that added a bunch of needless stuff or (worse) butchered the original story, this kept everything from the original faithfully and only added moments that provided extra character development and/or humor. While those wouldn’t be enough in and of themselves to make a live-action remake worthwhile, there’s the fact that this isn’t exactly live-action. Rather it’s a film made using virtual reality; the actors felt like they were in the jungles of Africa and seeing the same characters we see and the movie shows the virtual reality from the camera’s perspective. Point being, this revolutionary technique allows us to see what look like real wild animals acting out the story, which is an even better way to capture your imagination than animated creatures doing so.

I’ll add that I loved the increased role for Zazu (hilariously played by John Oliver, my favorite late night host) and the new lines for Timon and Pumbaa. Seth Rogen, who actually gets second billing, plays the latter!

I talked about the popularity of the Lion King musical. A Berkeley classmate of mine – a white classmate – actually praised it for having a black Simba instead of “JTT” even though she was in the demographic that would have grown up with a crush on Jonathan Taylor Thomas.

Of course he’s too old to play young Simba now (actually years older than Matthew Broderick was in 1994!) but it’s not just him missing from the new movie. I just reviewed <shudder> Aladdin and discussed the issue of representation for minorities. I’m not surprised that they went with black actors for the lead roles in this story set in Africa, but wondered if it was necessary for a movie where you don’t even see them. Seemed like a compromise having black actors play the lions while allowing funny others like Rogen and Oliver to play the comic relief.

I was surprised even Whoopi Goldberg wasn’t brought back in spite of being black but the new actors Disney hired did great. I remember getting intrigued last year learning some of the famous people who were going to be in this movie: Donald Glover as Simba, Beyoncé as Nala, and Chiwetel Ejiofor as Scar. I then asked who was playing Mufasa and wasn’t surprised to find out there was actually one actor from the original returning. 😉

Sometimes Disney agrees you don’t mess with perfection. I’m still glad they made this new movie though; they hit it out of the park!

I’m tempted to give it a slightly lower rating than the original because the story obviously isn’t fresh this time. Yet I have to give it extra props because the movie’s most devastating scene left me teary, which didn’t even happen when I watched the original. Well done.

Bottom Line: Watch it watch it watch it!!!

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to comment.