I’m astonished that people are having an uncanny-valley problem with Disney’s live-action version of “The Lion King.” Characters like Simba and Mufasa have been described as having R…
I’m astonished that people are having an uncanny-valley problem with Disney’s live-action version of “.” Characters like Simba and Mufasa have been described as having “dead eyes,” but I saw the movie well before I heard any of those complaints, and their eyes seemed utterly expressive and alive to me. Besides, the characters are meant to look like real animals, who don’t over-emote.
That, you could argue, is the essential difference between the new “Lion King” and the original. The 1994 version was an anthropomorphic cartoon in the classic Disney tradition of cuddly facial elasticity; the characters wore every thought and feeling on their beastly but really entirely humanoid features.
He has always been a magnificent actor, and a total chameleon, from the ebullient drag queen of “Kinky Boots” to the silently suffering, transcendently expressive victim-hero of “12 Years a Slave.” But in the six years since that Oscar-winning landmark, Ejiofor hasn’t had an opportunity to give the kind of populist performance that connects to an audience in a mythic way.
Ejiofor creates a fully rounded character, sympathetic at times, but fraught with peril. Scar doesn’t just scheme, he, with a thirst for power and vengeance that’s a kind of bottomless pit. As in Shakespeare, it’s his humanity that brings his monstrousness to bear, transforming him into a killer. You could say that Ejiofor plays the audience in much the same way that Scar manipulates those around him, especially Simba.
Speaking of which, there have also been rumblings that the new “Lion King” is too “hierarchical” in its vision of a leonine-led animal kingdom. Which makes me wonder: Are we really going to go there? “There” being: the application of the kind of kneejerk leftist-grad-student thinking that can be applied, if you work hard enough, to three out four mainstream American movies throughout history. The hierarchy,— all of it feels like code for attacking Disney as the New Oppressive Empire.
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