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 “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.
In the live-action version, which is, of course, nearly as much of an animated film (it’s just a different kind of animated film), the characters have a photo-realist splendor that’s (intentionally) more deadpan, and that allows us to imagine,
Read full article