The Lion King (2019): I just can’t wait for it to end

The Lion King (2019) has about 15-25 minutes of ok stuff, and the rest is unmitigated awful. I’m going to go into plot spoilers here, but it’s literally a remake of an almost 30-year-old movie so yeah, Scar is still a bad guy and Mufasa still dies. No surprise here. The minute Simba grows up, the movie crashes and burns.

The animation itself, is beautiful and I am excited to see how Disney uses the technology in more competent films. The scenery and characters are truly magnificent, and any still from this movie is just plain pretty. However, none of that matters when the acting is so awful, it makes you shake your head in shame. This voice cast should be fantastic, especially since they have a good director in Jon Favreau. However, aside from Mufasa (James Earl Jones), Zazu (John Oliver), young Simba (JD McCrary), young Nala (Shahadi Wright Joseph), and Rafiki (John Kani) everyone else is horrible. This cast includes Donald Glover, Beyoncé, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Keegan-Michael Key, Eric Andre, and Seth Rogan, yet everyone just sucks. Especially Donald Glover and Beyoncé, they both sound bored and uninterested. Glover in particular has the charisma of a flat soda, and his singing is not very good in “Feel the Love Tonight.”

The music itself is nice, but because it’s music that was written almost 30 years ago. The one exception to that is a song called “Spirit,” a song sung by Beyoncé. But this isn’t a Lion King song sung by Beyoncé, this is a Beyoncé single in a Lion King movie. It comes on, and it immediately takes you out of the movie, with its processed instruments and stupid freaking clap snare hit every modern pop-star uses. Turns out that song was produced by Pharrell Williams, which makes total sense why it sticks out like a sore thumb. The only reason that song is in the movie is so Disney can release a new Beyoncé single on Top 40 radio. It’s despicable.

The comedy doesn’t hit, with one notable exception which I won’t spoil here. When Mufasa dies, I felt nothing. No emotion. And I just cried my eyes out in Toy Story 4 so me being a jaded young dude is not an excuse here. Scar is fine, but can’t hold a candle to the original, he is not as menacing as the original. The hyenas, however, are super scary and menacing, but then they turn around and start cracking jokes, which is way too jarring.

To top it all off, they straight up reuse the audio for “Circle of Life,” it is literally the original recording. I also think they reused the original audio on “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” but with new lead vocals, but I can’t be certain on that one. Plus, because of the realistic art style, the music scenes are dull and uninteresting, a far cry from the animated film with its huge numbers. The art style also limits how much emotion the faces of the characters can portray, as they all just look like neutral feeling animals. No fear, no sadness, no anger, nothing like that.

This movie gets a 4/10. I wanted it to be better, but it just isn’t. Just watch the original, save your money. It is not worth the ticket cost.

Spider-Man: Far from Home: The third “Spider-Man 2” we have had in 15 years

Spider-Man was my favorite superhero growing up, so I always expect a lot from movie starring him. The original line of Spider-Man films are fond memories, The Amazing Spider-Man movies are not. The current Spider-Man series has been a lot of fun, I enjoy seeing the web-head interact with the other Marvel heroes and to see him portrayed by an actual teenager (at the start anyway). Since Far from Home is the first movie to star my favorite Spider-Man villain, Mysterio, I was very excited to see it. So how was it? It’s fine.

 

Tom Holland as Spider-Man is fun and is spot on for the character. Zendaya as this new version of MJ (they won’t call her Mary-Jane, but come on, we all know that’s who she is) does her character really well, and she is at her best when she is in the middle of a weak moment. Together, they make very good on-screen chemistry, and I like them together. Jake Gyllenhal as Mysterio/Glenn Beck is a perfect fit, and I loved seeing him come to life on screen.

 

The special effects and cinematography were very good, particularly the Mysterio fight scenes. The music was above par for these kinds of movies, it actually stood out to me, which is great. Production design was fantastic, as was the majority of the acting, the one detractor from that being JB Smooth as Peter Parker’s lazy science teacher.

 

All and all Far from Home is not a ground-breaking film in any respect, but it is well made and well done. It is not as good as Into the Spider-Verse, but it is better than the Amazing Spider-Man film series and better than Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3. I recommend it for all Spidey fans and all movie goers. 7/10.