Release: July 29th, 2020
Film: The Lion King (2019)
Tagline: It's one of Disney's highest grossing movies, yet so many people hate it. Let's find out why the remake of a timeless classic fell hard off of Pride Rock. The Nostalgia Critic reviews the live action Lion King from 2019.
We remembered these tropes so you don't have to:
- Actually Pretty Funny: when Timon and Pumbaa are distracting the hyenas by singing "Be Our Guest", the critic is at first attempting to contain his laughter, but then admits that he actually found the scene funny.
- Dumbass Has a Point: even though the Critic is right to point out the audience is mostly at fault for Disney making more of the remakes, the people he made appear to support this point actaully give out a few valid points that most moviegoers go to the movies to take their minds of from stress, and for most of them, the Disney Live-Action Remakes are a way of doing this.
- Dull Surprise: one of The Critic's main complaints about the film when it comes to the characters facial expressions because of the remake's more "realistic" approach, though he also singles out James Earl Jones's performance as this on certain scenes.
- Ensemble Dark Horse / The One Thing I Don't Hate About You: like many people who watched the remake, the critic cannot bring himself to hate Timon and Pumbaa, which he even admits to being the movies one saving grace because of Billy Eichner's and Seth Rogen's performances.
- It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Invoked. Of course, this one of the Critic's complaints about the remake, going to far as to say that it doesn't even do them right.
- Narm: Invoked. The Critic sees Mufasa's death scene as this, which he blames on the lack of facial emotion on the characters and the unneccesary additions; he breaks it down as follows:
- When Scar drops Mufasa to his death, unlike the original where he simply tosses him out, Scar instead, as the Critic calls it, "bitch-slaps" him before dropping him, which he considers something that middle-schoolers would usually do.
- When Simba's Big "NO!" happens, the lack of facial expression cracks the Critic up, because Simba's expression looks like "the Meow Mix finding out he got traded to Fancy Feast" rather than a blood-curling scream. When it is repeated in slow-motion later in the film, the Critic thinks it makes it even more hilarious.
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Padding: The Critic accuses some of the new scenes of being this, such as Nala's escape from the Pridelands, going to far as to saying that it takes away time from more important plot points and scenes. - Questionable Casting: Invoked. The Critic is shocked that they reduced "Be Prepared" to a speech despite the fact Chiwetel Ejiofor can sing while Seth Rogen sings his part in "Hakuna Matata" poorly.
- Running Gag: The Critic say in a awe-voice how the film "looks real".
- Straw Character: the Critic immediately makes from scratch three of these (with one of them in the toilet) to support his point about how audiences are at fault for Disney not being more original and just churning in these remakes.
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Invoked. Despite him complaining about how the film is practically a carbon copy of the original, the Critic shows disappointment when they don't show Rafiki hitting Simba with his stick, as they skip a very important scene from the original film.
- Took the Bad Film Seriously: Invoked. The Critic does praise the performance of not only Eichner and Rogen, but also of Donald Glover as Simba.
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What Could Have Been: [[Parodied]] in the Cold Open. The Critic watches a Making-Of Documentary about the remake, which is a Zoom meeting between Julie Taymor (played by Tamara) and Bob Iger (played by Jim) in where Julie discusses her ideas for the remake, which would've taken much more inspiration from the Broadway show she directed, by using costumed actors, lavished choreographged fight scenes, using African lesser-known actors and celebrating African culture in a similar vein to Black Panther (2018); even though he was impressed by the ideas, Bob Iger writes the opposite of what Taymor said, as he was way more interested in making money than giving the audience something new, much to the Critic's disappointment.
