The Lion King G
Allers and Minkoff make one of the greatest of the modern Disney epics, The Lion King, arguably the best animated film of the 1990s in terms of American animation. The Lion King tells a Shakespeare like tale of love, betrayal and the sins of the Father being passed to the Son, and to the evil Uncle. It is truly a beautiful piece of work. This is one of the strongest ‘adult themed’ Disney cartoons, with tragedy and betrayal on a level of high art, and it also has comedy and heart, in the form of goofy characters like the bird, Zazoo, the meerkat, Timone, the warthog, Puumba, and the monkey, Rafiki. All star cast includes James Earl Jones, Haley Joel Osmet and Matthew Broderick, as Simba. Jeremy Irons plays Scar, the evil uncle, and some might argue, demented in other ways than just being fascist. Hyenas are also famous comedians, but here it works, as Cheech Marin and Whoopi Goldberg are given funny lines. The first Disney movie to have an openly gay composer, Elton John, and controversially, two gay leads, Timone and Puumba, although others could argue they weren’t supposed to be. Also likeness to Kimba the White Tiger caused lawsuit and interesting headaches for the studio. Has 3D upgrade version done in 2011 that really is pointless as it is perfect so why mess with it. And the CD soundtrack has funny songs by Elton John which are so garbled they don’t make sense. Despite some oddities it's the best.
Review by Adam Browne
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