SSS

The Lion King

Movie Review

Submitted To:
Dr. Rima Namhata

Submitted by:
Abhishek Chhetri_PGFA2102
Ravindra Singh Parihar_PGFA2136
Vaibhav Goyal_PGFA2156
Urvi Kapoor_PGFA2155
 Movie Review

The Lion King (2019)

Cast: Donald Glover as Simba, Seth Rogan as Pumba, John Oliver as Zazu, Beyonce as
Nala, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Scar, James Earl Jones as Mufasa, Billy Eichner as Timon.
Director: Jon Favreau
Synopsis:
The movie “Lion King” is a story of animals living in a jungle in Africa and the jungle is
known as The Pride Lands. The protagonist of the story is Simba who is a naïve little
cub and is lured into danger multiple times by his uncle, Scar who has evil intentions to
kill him so that he can become heir to the throne of the jungle and the king of the pride
lands. After failing in few of his attempts to kill Simba, Scar is finally able to kill the
current king Mufasa and put the blame on Simba. After being blamed of his father’s
murder, Simba is hunted by his uncle but is able to succeed in escaping the murder
attempt by Scar. After few years when Simba grows up to become a strong adult, he
met his childhood friend Nala and got to know from her about the current scenario of
the pride lands. He then met a baboon who is a shaman, and the baboon helps him
reminisce what his father taught him when he was young and makes him realise his
duties to his people and his kingdom. Simba after learning the exploits of his uncle and
his army of hyenas, challenges Scar and his army for the throne of pride lands. He gets
the support of his people and friends he made over his life’s journey and is able to beat
Scar and succeeds in bringing harmony to the pride lands once again.

Review

Introduction
Director Jon Favreau made an attempt to remake one of our favorite movies “The Lion
King (1994)” and we are not disappointed from his work in this movie. The remake of
the movie was released in year 2019 and we have already watched the movie couple of
times since its release. Movie had beautiful and realistic animations and it felt like we
were watching real animals in the movie and not animated figures. Every scene in the
movie was so visually stunning, it gave a feeling that we were watching a nature
documentary.

Characterization
Movie had some great characters specially like Timon and Pumba which we liked the
most in the movie. Timon in the movie is the name of an animal which is of a species of
animals called meerkat and Simon is the name of an animal which is a warthog. We
really liked the philosophies of these two animals who are best friends in the story that
follow and teaches all the viewers in these stressful times. These two live their lives and
teaches the protagonist of the movie, Simba and also to the viewers of the movie, the
philosophy of living with no worries for the rest of your days. Their moto of life is
“Hakuna Matata” which means no worries for the rest of your life. Their moto is so
catchy that people all over the world recognize it and know what it means.
We liked the side characters of the movie too. Side characters like king Mufasa, the red-
billed Hornbill named Zazu, and the king Mufasa’s evil brother Scar were the reason
this movie is liked by so many people and became so successful economically
worldwide. Mufasa is such a great king to his people that everyone in the kingdom
respects him and acknowledges him as their king. Mufasa believes that there is a
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 Movie Review
balance in the world and we should respect all kinds of animals in this world. Mufasa
as a character is a great king and also a loving and caring father. He, in more than one
instances risked his life to save his child from danger and gave him important life
lessons so that he could grow up to be a good and a kind king.
If we do not talk about Scar as a villain in the story as well as how incompetent he was,
yet he had really big ambitions in his life then our review won’t be complete.
Law of the jungle states that the stronger creatures are to be feared and to be followed
and yet Scar who once challenged Mufasa for the throne and lost the fight, still did not
give up on his dream to be king. So, he accepted his defeat at the moment but patiently
waited for the right moment to take out the current king even though he cannot defeat
him in a one-on-one fight. We really liked the evilness about Scar and we believe Scar
was really a great antagonist of the story.
We would also like to talk about our protagonist of the story, Simba. At the starting
point of the story for us viewers, Simba is just a new born cub and as time passes on, we
see him grow up loved by all, respected by others as he was son of a king and rest of the
animals were scared of him because he was an animal who was above in food chain. All
the animals had great expectations from Simba even though he was just a kid and
always told him that he was a son of a great and strong king. These comments affected
his decision making and all those expectations made him eager to prove himself to
others.
In his desperation to prove himself, Simba tried to do things that put him in danger and
he had to be rescued by his father. One of the instances for this is when he goes to the
place called elephant’s grave yard even though it was prohibited to go there, just to
prove he can do it all by himself. It turned out it was hideout of a pack of Hyenas and
he had put himself in mortal danger by doing so. But then Zazu flew right away to
warn king Mufasa and so he could come in time to save Simba once again.
We want to reflect on the fact that Scar is being a great villain in the background. He is
the one who is convincing Simba to go to these dangerous places. He is being cunning
and staying in the back ground so that nobody can blame him for his evil deeds. He is
taking advantage of Simba’s innocence and his eagerness to prove himself to others. He
even shows his dissatisfaction when hyenas fail to kill Simba due to Mufasa’s
interference. But Scar do not give up on his schemes to kill Mufasa and tries one more
time only to succeed this time. He lures Simba to a narrow valley at the time when lot of
buffalos run through the valley. He is expecting a little cub to get squished by the
running herd but his plan gets ruined again when Mufasa once again risks his life and
is able to save his son’s life. In all this chaos, he takes advantage and pushes Mufasa off
the cliff and succeeds in killing him.
Scar even shows more cunningness and blames Simba for Mufasa’s death.

Theme Analyses
After watching the movie, we realised that there is a central theme to the story, “Circle
of Life”. Earlier in the movie also King Mufasa tells his son that there is a balance in the
ecosystem and the king should always try to maintain that balance. He also explains
that Lions aren’t necessarily dominant species in the ecosystem because when lions die,
their bodies decompose and become dirt and manure from which grass and tree grow.
Animals who are considered their prey eat these grasses and trees.

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 Movie Review
Mufasa believed and preached to his son that they should respect all kinds of animals
and should not consider themselves as the dominant species. King Mufasa also teaches
Simba that it is duty of the king to preserve the Circle of Life.

Afterthoughts
Movie has a good story and a line of good characters, but we felt that there are some
aspects of the movie that do not make sense at all. Mufasa’s ideology does not make
much sense when we consider Law of Jungle which is survival of the fittest. One more
thing we noticed that Mufasa’s law of preservation of circle of life is law which is forced
on the animals of pride lands and some species of the animals are suffering because of
these laws. Animal species like hyenas are expelled from the pride lands just because
they are carnivorous and it is in their nature to eat other animals.
Not just hyenas but Mufasa’s own brother feel that Lions are the dominant species and
should not show restraint. At the end of the movie, Simba once again brought forward
the philosophies of Circle of Life and forced Hyenas out of Pride Lands.
Also, when Simba saw Scar push Mufasa from the cliff, why didn’t he tell other lions
about what Scar did and let Scar blame him for the death of his father. In the movie, it is
also shown that both carnivorous animals are living with herbivorous animals in
harmony which is not realistic at all.
Even though there are some out of the world things happening in the movie, overall,
we enjoyed the story of the movie as well as the stunning animations very much and
really wish Disney to release more similar movies in terms of good stories, light
heartedness, fun but yet educational and impressionable.

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