94: The LION KING
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(Year refers to British release)
Running Time: 87 minutes
Colour: Technicolor
Estimated Attendance: 8.08 million
What they said at the time...
Synopsis
At Pride Rock in the African plains, Mufasa, the king of the lions, presents his new-born heir Simba to all species of local subjects. Everyone is happy except for Scar, Mufasa's embittered younger brother, who burns with thwarted political ambition.
As the months pass, Simba grows into a mischievous cub, rough-housing with his best friend Nala, blithely ignoring Zazu, the king's officious major-domo, and looking forward to the day when he too will rule the land. But Scar is waiting to make his move, and after an unsuccessful attempt to dispose of Simba by sending him off to explore an elephant graveyard, deep in hyena territory, without adult supervision, he hatches a dastardly plot to murder Mufasa and usurp the throne.
Enlisting the help of the hyenas, Scar lures the unsuspecting Simba into the path of a wildebeest stampede; Mufasa is killed trying to save his son. Scar then convinces the shocked Simba that the tragedy was his fault, and that he should go into exile. Narrowly escaping Scar's hyena henchmen, Simba collapses in the desert. There he is found by Pumbaa, a friendly warthog, and his wisecracking meerkat sidekick Timon. Adopting their 'no worries' philosophy, Simba grows into a bug-eating slacker. One day, he saves Pumbaa from being eaten by a lioness; it turns out to be Nala, who brings bad news from Pride Rock. Scar's reign has brought famine and devastation to the plain, and she urges Simba to return and put things right.
But Simba shrinks from the task, and it isn't until Rafiki, a witch doctor mandrill, seeks him out, that he resolves to face his past. He returns to do battle with Scar and learns the truth about his father's death. Galvanised with righteous anger, Simba saves himself but lets Scar be torn to pieces by the hyenas.
A year later, the ecological balance is restored, and, above the flourishing plain, Rafiki the mandrill presents the new-born son of Simba and Nala - the future lion king.
Review
The Lion King, Disney's thirty-second full-length animated feature, has already been phenomenally successful in America, as well as extremely controversial for certain elements that are supposedly traumatic for the very young. Despite this, it maintains a consistently saccharine tone; it is also, as might be expected, unconscionably pompous.
Disney's first cartoon feature to be based on an original story, The Lion King purports to be no less than "a unique allegory about each new generation being a torchbearer for its ancestors". Since Disney have always been at their best when bastardising well-loved children's stories, it seems a shame that they have suddenly felt the need to start weaving unique allegories, particularly ones that prop themselves up on such well-worn themes. From the opening scene, the film clearly aspires to a kind of Shakespearian grandeur. It begins with the hordes of furry faithful applauding the arrival of Simba to a song entitled 'Circle of Life', which is deafening and platitudinous in about equal measure (and just what are the gazelles and zebras so happy about - there's a new predator in town). The Hamlet parallel is earnestly laboured, and there's a bizarre moment when Scar, like a hairier Richard III, sings of his coup d'etat while the cave he's in mutates into the phallic towers of fascist architecture and the hyenas start goose-stepping.
The film's emphasis is on flashy, computer-generated effects (like the senssurround wildebeest stampede) to the detriment of the cartoonish sprightliness that usually makes Disney's version of the animal kingdom so endearing. There is a jolly interlude (as well as a jarring change of pace) with the fast-talking meerkat Timon, and Jeremy Irons does a creditable George Sanders impersonation as Scar, but the fun loses out to the portentousness. And despite all the money lavished on it, the stylisation looks cheap and rather nasty - the lions are peaky, the zebras beaky, and the warthog has a nose like an electrical socket.
Nonetheless, The Lion King has been so popular that Disney are pulling it out of US theatres so that they can re-release it for Thanksgiving - the kind of shameless marketing exercise only Disney can get away with. But their latest is not a patch on The Jungle Book.
Synopsis and Review from Sight and Sound Vol.4 No.10 October 1994 p.47-48
The Monthly Film Bulletin was published by the BFI between 1934 and 1991. Initially aimed at distributors and exhibitors as well as filmgoers, it carried reviews and details of all UK film releases. In 1991, the Bulletin was incoporated into Sight and Sound magazine.
