Los Angeles Times

'The Lion King' is a huge hit. It might also be Disney's most dispiriting remake yet

There's a wonderful moment in "The Lion King" - by which I mean Disney's 1994 animated original, not the glorified nature documentary that roared into theaters last weekend - in which Timon the meerkat and Pumbaa the warthog get the unenviable task of distracting a few hungry hyenas. Their solution is as foolhardy as it is entertaining: Timon dons a grass skirt and does a hilariously impromptu song and dance - part vaudeville, part luau - openly inviting their predators to chow down on his friend ("Are you achin' / for some bacon?").

The new "Lion King," a technically audacious, dramatically timid remake directed by Jon Favreau, has its own variation on the gag, though it may elicit as many eye-rolls as chuckles. Timon and Pumbaa (voiced here by Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen, respectively ) still offer themselves up to the hyenas as live bait, only this time Timon sings the opening lines of "Be Our Guest" from "Beauty and the Beast," another beloved Disney animation recently shoved through the studio's remake pipeline.

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