Things have been a little rough around the Magic Kingdom lately. Walt Disney Studios - and their numerous subsidiary companies - have spent the past year releasing a ton of bad movies to well-deserved critical beatings and lackluster box office. EuroDisney has taken a financial bath in a sea of red ink and has virtually provoked the French into declaring war on Mickey Mouse. Then Nancy Kerrigan showed up with a crappy attitude and blurted out how silly she felt taking their money.
But you know what they say: when the going gets tough, the tough get back to animation. The Lion King is the sort of film that the Disney empire was built on, and it's still the kind of movie that Disney does best. Sure, it's a typical production that you can just about write in your sleep. But on technical points alone, The Lion King ends up being one of the more impressive movies of the summer.
The story is a mix of The Jungle Book and The Sword in the Stone, with a good lion king squared off against his evil brother. Mufasa (voice of James Earl Jones) has just produced a son, and his sneaky sibling, Scar (voice of Jeremy Irons), can't stand the thought of being passed over by his new nephew. Scar joins forces with a pack of hyenas (voice of Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Martin and Jim Cummings) and plots a little regicide. But prince Simba (as an adult, the voice of Matthew Broderick) survives, and once he reaches maturity, he finds himself forced to return to his father's now crumbling kingdom.
The animation work in The Lion King is one of the most masterful jobs done by Disney's artists, as they successfully create a visual design that's more realistic and slightly less sentimental than the mouse that roars usually produces. Only the musical score comes close to a few false steps. For once, the empire gets it right.
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