The Lion King as reviewed by Numbuh 5

Yo! Numbuh 5 here! And I'm up to post my own review on dA. Do you guys think my best fan is the only one who does reviews to movies, TV shows, comics and video games in this account? Well, this time, he gave me a chance to write my own review. And Numbuh 5 is starting with... "The Lion King"!!!

This film is one of Disney’s finest masterpieces. A movie full of majestic pride and great storytelling. The animation is among some of the Mouse House’s revolutionary and the characters are so memorable it’s impossible to have seldom heard of them. So why is this movie the crowning moment of achievement for the studio who later bought us "Wreck-It Ralph" and "Big Hero 6"? Why is it their magnum opus? And does it still hold up to those days? Well, Numbuh 5 will find out while reviewing this one…

Numbuh 5 will start with the story, which is, as always on Uncle Walt and Pixar soopreme leader John Lasseter's ideals, the heart and soul of a good film. THIS story focuses on my favorite hero Simba (voiced by Jonathan Taylor Thomas as a cub and by Matthew 'Ferris Buller' Broderick as a badass and handsome adult), the lion cub son of the current king of the Pridelands called Mufasa (voiced by Darth Vader himself, James Earl Jones) and it showcases his life from cub to adult. Whether he is or NOT the next in line to the throne, Simba ends up a victim of some ups-and-downs such as the bullying hyenas and his dastardly uncle Scar (voiced by Jeremy Irons) and after a wildebeest stampede that Scar conspired and successfully managed to kill Mufasa with it, Simba feels it’s his fault and he flees the place fueled with fear and guilt. As Simba becomes a teen-to-adult, the Pridelands are plagued with oppression by Scar, who is now the king not only because of Mufasa's death, but because Simba is believed to be dead as well, and Simba must come back and challenge Scar for the throne. It’s a f%#&ing simple premise yet the execution makes this simple story f%#ing ambitious than it could have been. So, Numbuh 5 will dig onto those little categories and find out where the movie rock and where it stinks like Grandma Stuffum's junk garbage… not that it will do anyway.

Plot: the plot, as many people know, is an allegory to the classic Shakespeare play "Hamlet". So, it is pretty well written and well presented to us and, unlike DC comics who takes pleasure on slaughtering characters for shock value and to get a cheap and tasteless reaction, the Mouse sent Mufasa to hell because otherwise the movie would have sucked. If Mufasa survived, then he would pretty much just come back and get revenge on Scar and that would be so. Mufasa’s death was a necessity and that’s what made it refreshing and yet so f%&#ing sad at the same time! Everybody cites the death of Mufasa as one of cinema’s saddest moments. Wanna hear Numbuh 4's reaction? Yeah, it’s kinda sad, yet Numbuh 4 didn’t cry at it. Why? Because Numbuh 4, as always, is too tough for this kind of stuff! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!! He calls people who sobbed at this scene stoopid babies! But he didn't mean to deliberately offend you. Numbuh 4 is just reminding how big a heart you all have. Kiddy cartoon, my hip! The story has an impeccable pace too, showing you Simba’s childhood and the next half has him as an adult and learning new things and coming over his fears and dilemmas as well as making new friends too. Just the story of someone’s life is all you need to make a movie and "The Lion King" excels in it. The climax is a satisfying one and never does it feel like it’s all over the place or that it drags. It’s all evenly paced out and you get to see a bit of everybody in there. Some tense scenes apart, the climax even spares room for comedy so it has room for everything there. Speaking of the devil, the film manages to make us laugh and make us cry. It’s always great when a film can do this, balance equally seriousness and WB-style comedy together and make them work well together. It needs more than just a skilled writer to do this, because the people who wrote this script would also do work on Pixar movies.

If there’s any bizzarriness Numbuh 5 has with the story, though, it’s pretty much this: the final battle. You get this smash brawl with Simba and Scar. Numbuh 5 is sitting through the whole movie expecting this to be a grand epic shoved down my throat and… it’s over in seconds. Numbuh 5 wasn't too sure how long the actual battle sequence goes on for but it’s no more than a minute at most to Numbuh 5's expectations. Don't f%$# with Numbuh 5, Disney! Thanks for hyping Numbuh 5 up for the big brawl and then ending it prematurely! Sorry for Numbuh 5's irrascible rant, but Disney cherishes story at the expense of big epic smash brawl scenes. Well, at least they once did this to until they sinned with "Home on the Range" and then started copying Dreamworks and Pixar and churning out bull$#&% like “Chicken Little” and “Meet the Robinsons”! To Numbuh 5's relief, they’re undoing their damage with “The Princess and the Frog” and “Tangled”… Also, this may be a bizzarriness, but when Scar came up to a blubbering Simba after the stampede scene, WHY TO FATHER'S STANDARDS DIDN’T HE GET HIM INTO THE HELL FIRST AND FOREMOST?!?! There were no witnesses in the gorge so no one would dare to see him do this! Scar can just take possession of Simba's head, have a ball game with it and lie to everybody saying the wildebeest did it and he’d have gotten unpunished because nobody was around to see him stripe Simba of his head! Scar has the perfect opportunity to tear Simba into pieces and he just lets the poor wittle guy go and lets his dummy hyena heads do the dirty work for him! Way to waste your perfect opportunity, Uncle Scar! And people celebrate him as one of Disney’s best villains, the @$$hole wastes the perfect opportunity to feast over Simba's blood puddle and, in turn, shoots his own paw with Tony Montana's tommy gun!!! But hey, they can’t kill Simba, can they? So they HAD to make Scar be an evil buffoon so Simba can live happy away from the Pridelands and make him kill himself later. But that’s just Numbuh 5's bizzarreness, so don’t mind this. Another headscratching moment might have to be the romance with Simba and Nala. We get Elton John's whole signature hit “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” and them acting all lovey-dovey over each other during the song and then in the next scene they start arguing with each other. *sighs* Nobody's perfect… 

Headscratchness aside, is the story that good? Numbuh 5's reaction answers this question! It holds up beautifully and is so well told it couldn’t be told any other way. The story is a feast for the eyes with its gloriousness and you remember it for the rest of your life. The Lion King is truly revolutionary in storytelling.

Characters: Numbuh 5 refuses to tell you who the characters are cuz you know them all! OK, for those who don’t know, Numbuh 5 will tell you: 

My hero is Simba as Numbuh 5 said before. He starts off as a lion cub and his personality is perfect for that of a young prince. He may seem arrogant and think rather highly of himself as well as be on the smug side, but he never lets his arrogance take the best of him. He also has positive traits that make him likeable such as his courage and his loyalty to his dad and friends Timon, Pumbaa, Zazu, Rafiki and Nala. As an adult he changes personality and becomes rather carefree and laid back whilst also displaying remorse for his father from time to time. An excellent display of character development and showing how Simba's own foolishness that cost the life of his father changed him forever. Just take a look at him in the sequel! He’s very overprotective and paranoid! Rarely has character development ever been so well-displayed in a kid’s movie. 

Numbuh 5's villain is Scar, the brother of Mufasa and his only real motivation is to take the throne from Mufasa so he can get a chance at ruling Pride Lands somewhat with Simba being next in line to the throne and by the time it’s his time he’ll be pretty much f$%#ed up so he has pretty good reasons for being evil. He also has that kind of charm and wit that most villains have and you can’t help but either throw a bag of popcorn and a glass of coke on the guy or feel sorry for him over being the great villain he is. Jeremy Irons’ performance as Scar is beyond amazing and in Numbuh 5's opinion, deserving of an award or two. His iconic moments are pretty much the stampede scene and the “Be Prepared” song. 

Other characters include everybody’s favourite comedic duo Timon and Pumbaa (voiced by Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella respectively). These two have their moments, but they’re not Numbuh 5's favourite characters in the movie. Combined, they remind Numbuh 5 of Numbuh 2 and his stinkin' jokes he often shoves in my throat. Numbuh 5 also has Simba’s friend and later mate Nala who isn’t a prominent feature in the movie, but she’s a potential character, the hyena trio Banzai, Shenzi and Ed (voiced by Cheech Marin, Whoopi Goldberg and Jim Cummings respectively) who are great comedic villains and are a joy to watch every time, Zazu the Hornbill (voiced by Rowan "Mr. Bean" Atkinson) who is a great comedic foil and Mufasa’s informant. It’s impossible not to like Zazu, he’s just a great character to have acting as young Simba's mentor. And finally, we have the wise old baboon Rafiki who, despite being wise, also seems a little screwball as well. Rafiki cracks Numbuh 5 up a lot and his wise words are endearing to Numbuh 5 every time. This baboon is certinaly not as “bananas” as he may seem particularly as he kicks some hyena arse in the climax! Go Rafiki! Give those nasty hyenas a Falcon Punch!!!

All the characters in this movie are likeable and not a single one of them screams “HATE ME!” at you or even annoys you. That’s a good cast of characters on Numbuh 5's books, not a single annoying character among them unlike some other things Numbuh 5 has seen… (throws a glass of coke on a Spongebob poster in a fit of disgust and anger). 

Music: courtesy of the marvellous soundtrack celebrity Hans Zimmer, this film has a cool soundtrack and the music is very distinct and memorable, particularly since it brings in Africa’s natural flavour what with this film being set in Africa. The songs of the movie are all catchy, bouncy and memorable. A lot of people prefer “Hakuna Matata” or “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” by Elton John, but none of these beat Numbuh 5's personal favourite called “The Circle of Life (Nants Ingonyama)”. Numbuh 5 loves the music to this film and often listens to it on my pod. Bravissimo, Mr. Zimmer. 

Animation: what can Numbuh 5 say? It’s too epic for words! The animation is fresh, delicious and naturally flowing as well as brightly coloured. There’s nothing I can even fault with it. The animation makes this movie feel big and epic and at times it can get pretty beautiful, especially in the “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” scene. The animation and colours are fitting for all the scenes in the movie like in “Be Prepared” the scenery is dark and eerie and the colours reflect the atmosphere to help Scar’s song become even bigger and badder. The character animation is perfect too with the lions moving like how real lions move and the comedic characters having more Warner Bros./Cartoon Network-esque movements to their animation to showcase their comedic personalities. Scar’s animation in particular showcases how slimy and sneaky he is and you can tell just by watching this guy how evil he is, you don’t need dialogue to showcase how bad this cool guy is. You could watch his scenes in silence and you can tell this guy’s one serious villain. The crowning moment of awesome though might have to be the wildebeest stampede. Numbuh 4 would have loved that scene! Call him psycho if you will, but the wildebeest stampede is Numbuh 4's favourite scene in the movie! It’s gloriously animated and it feels big, tense, even downright frightening and you get a real feel on what it would be like to witness one of these in real life. The whole scene has you on tenterhooks and the ending leaves you speechless much like the 2nd issue of "The Powerpuff Girls: Second Chances" saga (yes, Numbuh 5 just did that comparison! What the heck?!). As well as being a master of storytelling, this film perfects animation too with many scenes being a revolutionary moment in all of animation. Few animated films these days, even CGI movies, can match this kind of animation. 

Overall: this film is the closest thing to perfect you will ever see in all of cinema. The story is great, the animation too epic for words, the music glorious and the characters lovable and memorable as Numbuh Zero. This is the best thing to come out of Mickey Mouse's house and nothing they make will come close to topping this masterpiece. An utter triumph and a saint on the records of all who worked on it, this is truly a gem on the entertainment capital…

So that’s Numbuh 5's review on "The Lion King"! What did you think, media fan operatives? If you have any requests for future reviews of mine or from my fellow KND operatives, then feel free to leave some, Numbuh 5 will be busy on Sector V to get to them! Numbuh 5 from Numbuh 1's house, Numbuh 5 reviews and is glad I did. Contact the Kids Next Door next time so other operatives will continue to review the wonders of the media…

Score: 10/10 (very strongly recommended) 

’s real thoughts: pretty much the same as Numbuh 5’s. "The Lion King" is very cool!

The Lion King (C) Disney
Codename: Kids Next Door (C) Hanna-Barbera / Curious Pictures / Cartoon Network