The Lion King (1994) Review: Shakespeare on the Savanna

Is The Lion King worth watching?

Yes. The Lion King is a near-perfect piece of popular animation: a mythic story told in under 90 minutes, with songs that have lasted and a villain for the ages. Its greatest strength is nerve, because it lets a family film carry genuine loss and guilt instead of cushioning every blow. The reservation is a middle section that leans on comic relief and a straightforward moral scheme that grown-ups will read long before children do.

What is The Lion King about?

The Lion King follows Simba, a lion cub who is heir to the Pride Lands, an African kingdom ruled by his wise father, Mufasa (voiced by James Earl Jones). Simba is impatient to be king and not yet ready to understand what ruling means. His resentful uncle Scar (Jeremy Irons), passed over for the throne, courts the hyenas on the kingdom’s edge and plots to take power for himself.

When Scar’s scheming tears the family apart, Simba is driven far from home. There he falls in with a carefree meerkat and warthog, Timon (Nathan Lane) and Pumbaa (Ernie Sabella), whose philosophy is to forget the past entirely. The rest of the film asks whether he can keep running from who he is.

Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff directed this American production, which runs 89 minutes in English. Matthew Broderick voices the adult Simba, Moira Kelly plays Nala, Rowan Atkinson is the fussy hornbill Zazu and Robert Guillaume is the eccentric mandrill Rafiki.

A family film unafraid of grief

The story borrows its bones from Hamlet and its tone from ancient myth, and it takes both seriously. The film builds carefully toward its central catastrophe, and when it arrives Disney does not look away: the moment is staged with a stillness and silence that remain startling in a studio cartoon. Many viewers remember it as the first time a film made them cry, and it is earned rather than manipulative.

Crucially, the grief shapes everything afterward. Simba’s exile is not a holiday but a form of denial, and the comedy of Timon and Pumbaa’s carefree creed plays differently once you see it as a young lion’s way of avoiding guilt. That layering is what makes the film work for adults as well as children.

Jeremy Irons and the music carry it

Scar is one of animation’s great villains, and much of the credit belongs to Irons, whose drawling, sardonic delivery makes the character funny, bitter and frightening in the same breath. His show-stopping number, “Be Prepared”, with its marching hyena army, is darker and stranger than anything else in the film. James Earl Jones supplies the opposite pole, a voice of such warmth and authority that Mufasa feels like a real parent rather than a symbol.

The soundtrack remains a benchmark. Elton John and Tim Rice’s songs range from the buoyant “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” to the romantic “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”, and Hans Zimmer’s score, woven with South African choral voices, gives the savanna its scale. The opening “Circle of Life” sequence, a dialogue-free procession of animals gathering at Pride Rock, is still one of the most confident openings in animation.

Where the fable thins out

The film’s moral architecture is simple: good king, jealous usurper, exiled heir. Children accept that happily, but adults will notice how little the lionesses of the Pride Lands are given to do and how neatly the hyenas are cast as a menacing underclass. Timon and Pumbaa are enormously likeable, yet their scenes slow the momentum at times, and the adult romance is brief enough to feel like a formality. These are the limits of a fable, not failures of craft.

Who should watch The Lion King?

It is an easy choice for family viewing and a rewarding revisit for adults who grew up with it. At 89 minutes it fits a single sitting. Parents of very young or sensitive children should know that it contains a frightening wildebeest stampede, a scene of real bereavement, menacing hyenas and some animal fighting; for most kids of six and up it is intense in a memorable way rather than a harmful one.

If it lands, try these next:

• The Incredibles, which also wraps real family tensions inside a crowd-pleasing animated adventure.
• WALL·E, for another American animated film that trusts images and silence to carry emotion.
• It’s a Wonderful Life, a live-action classic about finding your place and responsibility to others.

The verdict

The Lion King earns its reputation. It pairs a mythic story with superb voice work, lasting songs and hand-drawn animation of real grandeur, and it treats children as capable of handling sorrow. A slightly soft middle keeps it short of perfection, but it remains one of the essential animated films.

Rating: 4.5/5