The Lion King

1994 Shakespeare adaptation

Rating: 15/20 (Buster: 20/20)

Plot: Hamlet but with talking animals and a gay meerkat.

Ah, this is what the Disney magicians do best--loads of color, anthropomorphized animals, and disturbing parent death. I've not always liked this movie, more than likely because it came out while I put bicycles together at Toys "R" Us and heard "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" and "Circle of Life"--the former which I would utter breathlessly in my wife's ear while engaging in sexual intercourse with her from 1994 to around 1997--four times an hour which was torture that no Geoffrey's helper should ever have to endure. Not that the songs are bad here. I like what Elton John does there, and "Hakuna Matata," though more than a little annoying after you've heard it more than 1 1/2 times, is a fun little number. If "Hakuna Matata" would have been in the Toys "R" Us radio rotation, I more than likely would have put myself in the cardboard compactor thing and ended it all.

You really see 2-D animation differently now, even when comparing it to other 2-D animation. The colorful "I Just Can't Wait to be King" sequence is great, but it really kind of looks like ass when compared to the stuff in The Princess and the Frog. Disney was always so good with animals, and I like their movements in this and the subtle tricks the animators use to give them personalities. The "camera movements" seem stiff and computery at times.

I'm only half-kidding about the Hamlet comparisons. Clearly, Scar isn't having sex with Darth Vader's wife, Nala doesn't drown herself, and Simba doesn't die at the end. That would probably be too much for a Disney movie. Of course, Scar's the type of villain who also might be too much for a kiddie flick. He's a very adult villain, the sarcasm and venom wonderfully voiced by Jeremy Irons. His song's not very good though. The token gay characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, are funny, but they and the "Hakuna Matata" song, so fun and colorful and playful almost seem inappropriate after the darkness of the previous scene. And I've always wondered about how Simba ages during that scene. Were they really singing for that long? Yoda monkey's a fun little character. I got my picture taken with him at Disney World, and I had an unfortunate and obvious erection in the shot. It was the same situation with Mary Poppins at Epcot. My favorite character is Ed the hyena. That mo-fo needs his own prequel, maybe something called The Lion King 1/2. The bird's unnecessary, and his "Morning Report" song is about the worst thing I've ever seen in my entire life. That includes Holocaust movies. I think it was added for a "Special Edition" thing, left out of the original for very good reasons. Simba's dad is kind of a dull character, and I think the feminist would have problems with how little the female characters do in this. I wouldn't want James Earl Jones as a father though! If he's not cutting off his kids' hands, he's letting monkey's hold his newborn children on rocky precipices! I wouldn't be surprised to find out that that inspired new fathers to hold their babies up like that on the roofs of hospitals similar to how people who get on boats have to imitate that whole "King of the World" thing from Titanic. Not a fan of the big fight at the end of this, a scene bathed in far too much red and using too many slow-motion swiping shots.