Review of The Lion King
★☆☆☆☆
Tilden has been watching this recently so I feel compelled to review it, though it is beyond me why anyone would voluntarily think very deeply about this film.
I recently found out that the lyricist, Tim Rice, sent his lyrics for each song to Elton John, who wrote the music to "The Circle of Life" in twenty minutes, which explains a lot. The music to this movie is so bland, it seems as if any idiot could have taken the tunes to any random early ‘90s top 10 songs and it would have sounded exactly the same. After raising 3 children, one of whom is obsessed with Broadway and musicals, I feel I can judge musicals and children's movies pretty quickly and accurately. This is one of the worst.
Beyond the drab music, I have seen many social media posts claiming that “minds are blown” when they discover that “The Lion King is Hamlet.” Let me set this rumor to rest. Hamlet is a work of genius. The plot of The Lion King might have been written by AI that had been fed all the episodes of Scrooge McDuck from the 1980s. There is truly nothing original in this plot and nothing even very interesting. The characters are dull, the scenes predictable, and the relationships bland.
Finally, explain to me the logic of a song all about the natural order of things in a movie that also expects me to believe that a pack of female lions would literally let themselves starve rather than fight a bad king. Did they even read the Wikipedia entry about lions?
I would assume the Broadway show is fun just because of the puppetry. But beyond that, I do not recommend wasting your time.
One star, for the fact that the baby lions are cute. Would not recommend. Go watch Moana again.
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