Listening to Glover & Beyonce sing together is special, Scar is decently rendered, and Rogen & Eichner offer the most unique and successful moments. We're forced to sit through self-congratulatory animation montages that are useless beyond 'look what we did!'Ĭrowds seem to be going for the cast, and many of those performances are the highlights. The few things that are changed don't expand the story, but just extend scenes past the point of reasonable story economics. Thankfully, the greatness of the story is left untouched, though it was already plenty great without being redone.

So frustratingly unimaginative, it makes 2019's Aladdin look like a feat of original storytelling. It sets the stage for both the larger things (story beats / scenes), as well as the smaller things (specific line deliveries), to be a lazy karaoke tune. From moment one, when the iconic 'NAAAH SA-VIN-YAAAH!' bursts forth, I realized they were so beholden to the '94 classic they didn't even bother rerecording that vocal. It's not just similar to its source material but is 100% the same in almost every aspect. Otherwise, my worst fears were warranted.

Technically, the CGI animation is impressively state-of-the-art and new. My question going into the latest 'pay-us-for-your-nostalgia' Disney-remake was, 'Why do we need this? What new can it bring?'.

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