Nostalgia carries The Lion King to mediocrity

Simba (voiced by JD McCrary) in The Lion King. Image courtesy Disney.

Whatever artistic purpose exists in converting classic Disney animated films into the husk of brilliance remains well beyond my understanding. Take The Lion King, Disney's newest reboot, a film that largely copies the original a la Psycho 1998 and yet has very little substance to add to its template. All of these Disney reboots exist for profit, but The Lion King is a rather egregious attempt to feed off nostalgia.

The movie has effectively the same plot as the 1994 original. Simba, voiced as a cub by JD McCrary and as an adult by Donald Glover, is stuck in the middle of a power play between his father Mufasa (James Earl Jones) and scheming uncle Scar (Chiwetel Ejiofor) for control of Pride Rock, which his father loses in rather dramatic fashion. Cast out of the kingdom, Simba is taken in by snarky meerkat Timon (Billy Eichner, a step up from Nathan Lane) and sweet warthog Pumba (Seth Rogen), who teach Simba to let go of the past and enjoy today. That's easier said than done though, especially after childhood friend Nala (Shahadi Wright Joseph as a cub and Beyonce as an adult) asks him to return to reclaim the throne and live up to his father's legacy. Joined by faithful servant Zazu (John Oliver), the wise Rafiki (John Kani) and his mother Sarabi (Alfre Woodard), Simba returns to battle Scar, hyena leader Shenzi (Florence Kasumba) and her army of hyenas (Keegan-Michael Key and Eric André among them) for control of the kingdom.

The biggest compliment to offer this new Lion King is also the root cause of one of its biggest flaws. This is a legitimately good looking film, from the lush scenery to the impressive CGI that does a phenomenal job making the animals look fairly authentic. Yet the CGI is a major weakness for The Lion King because the conversion from animation to realistic CGI removes a lot of the film's charisma. By aiming for verisimilitude with the lions, elephants, hyenas, and multitude of critters, the characters lose much of their personality because they can't emote. Take a character like Zazu, who is memorable in large part because his animated facial expressions enhance the wry dialog delivered by Rowan Atkinson. Poor Oliver is stuck voicing a literal bird, which puts the onus on his vocal abilities to carry the character and removes a layer of uniqueness from the character. Even the musical numbers are dinged by this; because the animals are supposed to be “real”, director Jon Favreau can't stage the elaborate musical numbers that highlighted the original. What's left is outright boring musical numbers that exist in a faux reality, which runs counter to a genre defined by its flights of fancy.

The Lion King is ill served by the transition to a real-life setting, which is one of the few real methods it attempts to distinguish itself from the 1994 version given how many shots this version borrows. Favreau does have a little wiggle room though, interpreting minor scenes to make subtle, often deleterious, changes to the source content. One example worth highlighting is transporting Can You Feel the Love Tonight in the middle of the afternoon, dulling a lot of the romanticism of the moment. To be fair, some of the tweaks work pretty well – an indulgent Disney reference in the third act is an improvement over the scenario from the original – but most of the tweaks do not benefit the film. Where Favreau and writer Jeff Nathanson, and by extension The Lion King, have control is in the approximately 30 minutes of extra run time. One of the main target areas is the development of the female characters, which is hit or miss. Having Senzi lead the Hyenas instead of serving as a Stooge is a step up, resulting in a pretty nice payoff during Scar's demise. The film is less effective with Nala, giving her a couple extra scenes that try to add courage to a character that was already pretty courageous. Favreau and Nathanson simply don't do enough with the extra time to justify having it, and the added time hurts the narrative flow while stagnating the musical numbers.

The one benefit of adapting The Lion King is the quality of the source material. The original is so good the ersatz version can't be all bad. Playing it safe saved the film from being anything less than mediocre, but it prevents it from achieving anything much greater than that. And without any interest in exploring the text, the film lacks an artistic reason to exist. The point is purely profit, and it makes for an uninteresting movie.

Review: Two out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

 

Rating: PG

Run time: 118 minutes

Genre: Drama

tl;dr

What Worked: Billy Eichner, James Earl Jones

What Fell Short: Extended Run Time, Live Action Setting, Musical Numbers

What To Watch Instead: The Lion King

Midsommar is a waking nightmare

Vilhelm Blomgren and Florence Pugh in Midsommar. Image courtesy A24.

Midsommar milks a lot of terror out of predictability. It's made very clear very early something bad is going to happen, and a passing familiarity with a certain horror genre prepares viewers for how poorly everything ends. Yet the film not only overcomes the obvious result, it uses the inevitability to its advantage to make things even more horrifying than before. Midsommar is a distorted countdown toward doom, with the horror stemming from the time-confused journey to the chaotically drug-soaked finale. 

 

Midsommar stars the ferocious Florence Pugh as Dani, a grad student constantly on the verge of both tears and breaking up with her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor). They stay together though heading into a midsummer festival in Sweden organized by Christian's friend Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) and his commune. Flanked by Christian's bros Josh (William Jackson Harper) and Mark (Will Poulter), Dani and Christian dive into the life of the peaceful, drug-fueled world of a small town where the sun never fully sets. The festival is not quite as it seems as a sinister undertones percolate up and the trip takes a dramatic turn for the worst.

Midsommar is a master class in film directing. Every shot has a purpose, every frame reveals a lot without telling too much. This film is about as close to technically perfect as a horror film can get, crafting an intense and discomfiting atmosphere that absolutely swallows people into its strangely sunny heart. Even the coldness that results from such technically precise filmmaking adds an untrustworthy layer of removal, an illusion of distance befitting a film about the distance between people and the ease of which it spreads. Kindness in this movie is a falsity, and writer/director Ari Aster's most vicious act is to allow the audience to even slightly pretend everything is safe.

Except for the special effects. Aster loves some blood and guts, showing as much violence as he can and leaving precious little to the imagination; if there's a body to throw down a mountain, he's going to show you exactly how hard it lands. This is a good idea for this film, with the initial shock of a sudden act of violence ultimately melting into the film's otherwise fever dream sense of reality. But the props he uses look terrible, clearly false and resulting in moments that are more funny than jarring. Midsommar depends so much on its atmosphere to carry the proceedings having one element look bad comes perilously close to revealing the facade behind it all. It's more effective on principle for this film to show the gore, but the lack of quality in the gore itself nearly cancels out the benefits.

The bodies are an unfortunate reminder of poor cinema craftsmanship, but the rest of Midsommar is a waking nightmare. It's a bloody trip, an experience to survive and wade through as the wait for the bad things to happen intensifies. And all of this happens in under the sun, with barely any darkness to be found. Fear is conveyed best in the dark, where the imagination replaces the senses and bad dreams overwhelm good nights of sleep. Aster shoots almost everything in the light, which is traditionally safe and warm and a refuge from the evils that lurk in the shadows. How then does one make the light even more terrifying than the dark? The effect is due in part to the copious drug use from the characters that eventually seeps into the filmmaking – it's difficult to have a firm grasp of exactly what's going on over the last 30 minutes.

 

Aster's most interesting trick is playing with the concept of safety in daylight. The film is so bright, so filled with white and purity it should come across as impossible for anything bad to take place. But removing darkness creates a distrust of the light – no community can be this friendly, no place can be this innocent. The thought is disorienting by intention, designed to confuse and to horrify as the validity of those doubts gains more and more truth. The evil in Midsommar hides in plain sight, only revealing itself far too late to do anything about it.

Review: Four and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

 

Rating: R

Run time: 140 minutes

Genre: Horror

tl;dr

What Worked: Atmosphere, Florence Pugh, Directing

What Fell Short: Special Effects

What To Watch As Well: The Wicker Man