#Lion king live actio movie#

The story, even with a gently updated script by Jeff Nathanson, is roughly the same: a lion cub named Simba idolizes his father Mufasa (voiced, as in the original, by James Earl Jones), knowing that one day he’ll follow in those paternal pawprints to become king of Pride Rock. How you feel about Favreau’s interpretation of The Lion King, a blend of live-action filmmaking techniques, virtual-reality methods and computer–generated imagery, will depend largely on how you feel about the original. The movie’s most horrific sequences are followed, often too abruptly, by attempts at jaunty good humor the movie’s tonal shifts are jagged as shards of glass. Its moments of terror are protracted and bleak, and play freely on a child’s worst fear: that of losing a parent. In fact, I can think of few movies that are as emotionally punishing in the guise of being charming or life–affirming. And now, with the smoke from Aladdin’s lamp still lingering in the air, comes The Lion King, Jon Favreau’s photorealistic adaptation of the 1994 animated megahit, a film beloved by many, if not by me. These revamps are appearing so rapidly, it’s hard to keep up: two of them, Tim Burton’s Dumbo and Guy Ritchie’s Aladdin, have already appeared this year, with release dates barely two months apart. Those experiences matter, and Disney knows the -power-and the profit -potential-of what’s in its vaults, which helps explain the studio’s ongoing strategy of remaking its most popular animated films, often in straight-out live-action versions.

#Lion king live actio movie#

When you’re a big person, a movie seen in a theater is literally larger than life when you’re a little person, it can be like a new portal opening in the universe, overwhelming in the best way-or possibly the worst. I can say that with just one film, the Disney organization created a monster: I demanded more movies, and a cat. The first movie I saw in a theater, at roughly age 3, was The Three Lives of Thomasina (1964), about the adventures of an orange feline. Even I can attest to the potency of the Disney product. Disney -productions-whether we’re talking about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969) or the empowerment juggernaut Frozen (2013)-have long been considered safe, wholesome choices for kids, pictures that parents can feel they don’t need to vet in advance. Unless you’re 99, and maybe even then, your first big-screen experience is likely to have been a Disney movie.