The Lion King 1994

[9.6/10] It begins with hope and overenthusiasm. It tumbles into guilt and hesitation. It culminates into self-realization and redemption. From the bird’s eye view, hornbill or otherwise, it seems so simple. Simba’s journey, from timid cub to noble king, almost seems easy.

What makes The Lion King a masterpiece is how well it builds that journey from one step to another, how perfectly it balances its tone between family-friendly laughs and poignant drama, and how stunningly it conjures the swirl of sights and sounds that immediately mark the film as something else. The core of the story is a relatable, elemental one, but the dramatization of it is smart, gorgeous, and moving.

So much of what makes it work is the two major emotional shifts in the story. Let’s be frank. Young Simba is adorable as all hell, but also a little annoying. He has to be, because this is a story of entitlement turning to humility turning to responsibility, so he has to start some place haughty and privileged. As a cub, he only sees the crown as a means to do whatever he wants, to be in charge, to have people respect and admiration by dint of title and right, not based on who you are. Simba sees becoming king as his destiny, something taken for granted, part of a world there to meet his whims. You have to start there for him to be humbled.

But more than anything, Simba is trying to be his father. He’s chasing the idea of being king, more than he’s after actually being the leader of his people. That means he admires the trappings, those childlike caricatures of what being an adult is like. He envies the freedom to do what you want like he imagines his dad to be able to do. He wants to be brave and courageous and physically powerful like his father is. Most of all, he imitates his father’s roar, to comically piddling results, a symbol of his faltering efforts to be a grown-up in the mold of his dad.

That exuberance gets him into trouble when he bites off more than he can chew (figuratively of course). It happens at first in the Elephant Graveyard, where his efforts to be brave and headstrong not only put him at risk, it puts his companion and guide in danger as well. It’s the movie’s warning shot to Simba, orchestrated and manipulated by his uncle, not to go too far too fast.

Then the wildebeests come. There may be no more harrowing scene in Disney history than Mufasa’s death. It’s striking for the visual majesty and terror of it, as a horde of computer-generated creatures storm into the valley. It grabs you as the culmination of Scar’s resentments and schemes, playing on his enemies’ deepest fears and insecurities to seize power. More than that, though, it pierces as the first emotional turning point for Simba, the moment where he loses that enthusiasm and replaces it with guilt.

Because he blames himself for his father’s death. We feel for him in the moment where he begs his dad to wake up, where he calls out for help that will never come, where he crawls under his dad’s giant paw for one last sense of security and protection. It hurts that much more from what Scar instills in him -- the belief that this was his attempt at being a king gone wrong, that his same well-intentioned but misguided zeal brought down the parental figure he was imitating. So he runs away from what he once coveted, out of a belief that he’s no longer fit for it.

That makes The Lion King sound like an abject tragedy and, in fairness, parts of it are! There is something conspicuously operatic and Shakespearean about the tale, with some subtle Hamlet shout outs in play. But that highfalutin description belies what a fun and delightful movie this is. For a film grappling with such weighty ideas as the death of a parent and what it means to assume their legacy and rediscover your identity, it is also a hilarious, energetic, and thoroughly enjoyable romp.

Much of that can be attributed to the murderer’s row of spritely side characters and absolutely stellar performers. Rowan Atkinson’s Zazu flies about with his stuffy demeanor, the perfect fodder for aghast reactions to the latest dose of tomfoolery. Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Marin, and Jim Cummings make for an uproarious trio of hyenas, who’s nippy dynamic with one another livens things in the henchmen department. Robert Guillame’s Rafiki has all the playful, kooky mentor energy the picture needs. And the combination of Nathan Lane’s used car salesman of a meerkat and Ernie Sabella’s pungent but kind-hearted warthog makes for a vaudevillian pairing to rival any other.

The unforgettable contingent of supporting characters extends to the yin and yang of the lion world in the movie. James Earl Jones is iconic as Mufasa, mixing the supreme dignity and nobility of his role as a monarch with a warmth and playfulness that makes him engaging as a father figure. That combination allows us to understand why Simba admires his dad, but also why he loves him. On the other end of the spectrum though, Jeremy Irons’s Scar becomes one of Disney’s very best villains. His foppish unctuousness and droll wit make him a vital part of the movie’s humor and personality, but when needed, he can slip into pure menace and manipulation, making him the negative image of his brother and the perfect antagonist for his nephew.

He fits the movie’s needs as a villain so well because his rise to power represents a disruption of the vaunted circle of life. You’d have to be covering your ears during the boffo opening number and rifling through your popcorn during Mufasa’s speech to his son about the importance of that cycle. It represents the ethos of the movie, that to be a part of that neverending process is not a right, it’s an honor, one that should humble and restrain you, rather than give you license to take what you want from it.

That is Scar’s great sin as the feature’s archenemy. He overtaxes that cycle, feeding ravenously upon it with his hyena co-conspirators, until the other animals under his care leave and the land deadens in their wake. His self-centered desire for power and satiation is a violation of that natural covenant, the one Mufasa understood and tried to instill in his son.

But Simba’s related yet distinct sin is absenting himself from that cycle and the responsibilities that come with it. He refuses the call, choosing to live (and, not for nothing, eat) apart from it. The midpoint of the film is a comic stretch, where Timon and Pumba’s antics are at their zenith. At the same time, though, they represent Simba shirking his responsibilities, compartmentalizing and his past rather than dealing with him. It’s an implicit but passive rejection of what his dad tried to impart to him when they gazed out on the savannah together.

Who can blame him for being distracted by the savannah though? Independent of the great character journey the movie puts forward, it is just an unmitigated feast for the eyes. The film makes glorious use of color, from the sun-drenched golden hues of Simba’s presentment, to the dusky pinks and purples of a land at rest, to the dark blue glow of the night sky where fallen kings rest. The light and shadow has a purpose here, representing devastation and damnation in the grayscale state of Pride Rock under Scar and the fires that erupt there, balanced by a cleansing rain that gives way to the same brightened beacon that once marked Simba for his destiny from above. The animators and design team outdid themselves in pure scenic and atmospheric beauty throughout.

So did those who worked on the animals and, for lack of a better term, camera work here. Each animal not only moves with such primal grace, but is meshed with expressive faces and more human gestures that find the right midpoint between realness and exaggeration. By the same token, there’s some tremendously impressive cinematography here, like the Vertigo-esque zoom when Simba sees the wildebeests on the horizon and the swirling pan as Scar taunts his nephew about his terrible secret. There’s a dynamism in movement, both in the figures on screen and the invisible camera capturing them, which makes this one a treat for its imagery alone.

The same goes for the film’s impressive score. Hans Simmer’s sumptuous score, suffused with traditional African melodies and voices, adds emotion and a sense of mythicness to so many moments. There’s a spirituality to this film in moments big and small, from a simple glance at the stars to a beatified image of Mufasa projected from the sky, and the score is greatly responsible for that feeling. At the same time, the film’s boppable tunes, penned by Tim Rice and Elton John, make a big impression. Even the movie’s only real dose of cloying, on-the-nose sap, “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”, is bookended by amusing intros and outros from Timon and Pumba. With instant classics like “Circle of Life” and “Hakuna Matata”, both the instrumental and lyrical parts of the soundtrack shine.

The depth of feeling conveyed by the music helps strengthen the other, equally-significant emotional turn Simba makes in the second half of the film. Having given off the life of the crown prince and retreated to a life of freewheeling hedonism, Simba must regain his identity after growing up without his father, carrying the shame of the calling he deems himself unworthy of and unsuited for. Years in the jungle with his meerkat and warthog buddies have acclimated him to a more carefree life.

That is, until Nala arrives and provides the shock to his system he’s been avoiding for years. What follows is a challenge from her, a playful but spiritual lesson from Rafiki, and a communing with Mufasa that shakes Simba from his stupor. These three figures in his life, representing the future, the present, and the past, challenge him to confront his trauma, to grow from it, and to reassert himself as not just the rightful king, but the person his father knew he could be.

That means challenging Scar and, inevitably, exposing the dastard’s secret plots and manipulations. The ensuing skirmishes among lions and hyenas are just as visually stunning, while mixing in enough slapstick to keep things light enough for the kiddies. The back half involves mirrors and echoes of the first, from Nala’s questions about what Simba’s mother would think, to Mufasa’s promise of guidance from above coming true, to Scar facing a different outcome to his cliff-dangling murder attempt. There’s something satisfying in this call and response, helping track the change of generations and the difference between where Simba starts as a person and where he ends.

That journey is, ultimately, more compelling that the simple avenging of his father or reclaiming of the throne. It’s what those acts represent that moves the audience and powers The Lion King. It is the consequence of Simba accepting those responsibilities, of making peace with his guilt and insecurities, and of living up to what so many hoped of him. It is no coincidence that his crowning moment is to let out a proud and mighty roar, a sign that he’s become the real, wiser and nobler version of the king he so fancifully imagined when he was a cub.

That wisdom comes from understanding. Before he could become that worthy leader, he had to come back from loss and psychological hardship that would stymie the best of us. Before he could be humbled and chastened by such pains, he had to start from a place of naivete, to have unrealistic and immature visions of what wearing that crown means. So when he does follow in his father’s footsteps, which he can now fill out, he understands his place at the head of the pride as one of duty, rather than of privilege, and his place within the circle of life rather than apart from it.

The movie reaffirms that with the closing moments that mirror those that began the film -- the birth of Simba and Nala’s daughter. It’s the ultimate vindication that this cycle continues, beyond Mufasa, beyond Simba, beyond any of them, through a line that nevertheless connects them all.

With that final bow, The Lion King cements itself as a masterpiece and one of the crown jewels is the DIsney Canon. So affecting is its story, so entertaining are its players, so stirring are its visuals, that it’s hard to even settle on what the movie’s best feature is. And yet, it all stems from something so seemingly simple -- hubris and loss and recovery and self-actualization -- done up in such wondrous tones. It gives us a hero running from his responsibilities, until they heal him, his home, and the cycle he rejoins once more.