Question

狮子王英文观后感

150字初一水平

Answer 1

1

Disney continues its string of instant classic family films with one of their best in recent years, The Lion King. Essentially, it's a loose interpolation of Shakespeare's "Hamlet," set in the fields of Africa, with lots of typical Disney anthropomorphic creatures to sing and dance for our every amusement. It's a solid endeavor, with excellent characterizations and a good deal of heart that keeps keen interest, while also blessed with a memorable soundtrack.

Simba (voiced by Jonathan Taylor Thomas, "Home Improvement") is a lion cub currently being groomed to be the next king of the plains, which is currently the job of his father, the strong, brave Mufasa (James Earl Jones, The Sandlot). Mufasa's slighter, but wilier brother, Scar (Irons, Reversal of Fortune), wants to be the king in the worst way, and devises a plan to usurp the vaunted position for himself. But first, he needs to get Mufasa out of the way, and Simba as the next in the blood line. Banished in exile, Simba finds a life of no worries, but destiny calls him. Will he be ready to avenge Scar's misdeeds?

The Lion King works on nearly every level. I won't go so far as saying it is a masterpiece, but it is definitely worthy of being called a classic in the Disney arc, containing all of the elements that the greats of the 1930s and 1940s delivered. Although many clearly will be enamored of the catchy soundtrack, or the colorful animation, where The Lion King's strength really lies is in good storytelling. You feel for Simba and his plight, which pays off well during the sadder moments, later becoming thrilling when the confrontation between the Simba and Scar manifests itself in a fiery, cataclysmic finale.

I feel the need to point out that the MPAA ratings system has a perfunctory tendency to give G ratings to anything that is animated and has the word "Disney" above the title. While it probably isn't going to permanently wreck the psyche of any young children out there, The Lion King is quite a dark, scary and often violent film. Yes, it's all a cartoon, but there is a murder of a main character, and a handful of attempted killings throughout, and while people feel that animation equals innocuous fare, The Lion King is not cartoonish in its handling of these adult themes. Heck, the flatulence alone should have been enough to kick it to PG, even if there weren't several scenes of murder and mayhem.

On the flip side, The Lion King will appeal to adults more than most Disney films just by being more mature in its themes, so even adults without children should find much to like here. Nice scenery, pleasant music, and a very strong story all add up to one of the grand, timeless entertainments of the 90s for young and old alike. Watching this will become an integral part of the "circle of life" for future generations for a long time to come.

2
The LION KING is technically an amazing and dazzling movie. I find it hard to review a cartoon. Perhaps, I could start by discussing some of the characters that were made special by the actor's voice.
Hands down, the best voice in this movie was that of Jeremy Irons who was the evil Scar, brother of the king Mufasa. Irons is brilliant in everything he does, but I think his best roles were BRIDESHEAD REVISITED and REVERSAL OF FORTUNE. He can play villains and good guys equally well. James Earl Jones was the voice of Mufasa, and although he was good, I expected more out of one of the most dramatic sounding voices in the movies today. Jones could have been a great orator (read politician I guess) had he not become an actor. Whoopi Goldberg was funny as a laughing hyena. I liked everyone except Mathew Broderick who I felt was too weak and unconvincing as the grown up Simba.
The movie's strengths, however, were not in the characters. The images and the soundtrack were the highlights. All of the music was very moving. The images had a 3D effect that I have not seen before. There was clear foreground and background in almost every shot, and sometimes they even varied the focus as you would in a "real" movie so that at first the foreground was in focus and then the background. My favorite part of the entire show was the vibrance of the colors. Monet would have come every day to see The LION KING.

Sad to say, I can not give it as high a rating as I would liked for two reasons. First, the story and the characters were okay, but they were not as interesting as they could have been. When they have to resort to lots of jokes about gas and bad breath, you know the script writers have run out of steam.

Second, the main audience for this movie is little kids. I have a 5 year old boy who went with us. Why oh why did they have to have someone who viciously murders his own brother in the sight of his brother's son? And if they felt they had to kill off a character, why be so explicit? Yes, this part of life does happen, but so does rape, incest, drive-by shootings and a lot of other stuff. Being true to life does not mean we have to subject little kids to it.

By the way, my son spent almost the whole movie in one of our laps, but claimed in the end to have not been scared (he was clearly scared while it was going on), and wanted to see it again. Actually, he wants to see LASSIE even more.

3
Walt Disney came up with a winning formula when he made SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, back in 1937; over the years, his company refined that formula to a science. With the re-birth of Disney in the late 1980s, the "magical" formula for Disney animation was re-discovered by Jeff Katzenberg and Michael Eisner, the studio heads. Unfortunately, these two men are not Walt Disney: they're Hollywood studio executives. That means that you can expect them to milk a winning formula for all it's worth, and not dare to push the edge. If it works, why change it?

Because you can wear it out, that's why. The spectacular box-office success of Disney's animated films (except for THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER, which deserved to do better) has blinded the men on the top of the heap; as long as the money keeps rolling in, they're not going to want to make any changes. But they don't see that when you rely too heavy on a safe, predictable formula, you risk losing the life-granting "spark" that infuses your creations with energy--and keeps the money rolling in. THE LION KING is going to make another pile of money for Disney, and as a result we can expect to see no changes in the formula for Disney animated films in the future. That formula is laid bare here:

- Pour lots of money into producing great animation. This is the easy part. The Disney studios have hundreds of artists and the latest computer technology to produce lavish, dazzling animation that can be matched by no one else. There are some amazing moments here, especially during the opening sequence (which Disney has pushed for months, revealing this sequence at its many Disney Stores as early as February) and a scene where Mufasa speaks to his son from the clouds. The animation on the rest of the movie is also good, as one expects from Disney. But is great animation the only reason we watch Disney films? No. The formula has more ingredients, such as ....

- Create an evil, sneaky villain, and then let him be utterly defeated (preferably in the midst of an inferno of some sort, with lightning and smoke and explosions and fire to make it more dramatic). With the Disney formula, there are only the Good Guys and the Bad Guys--you know whom to root for, because the Bad Guys are always drawn in a cartoonish way that makes them look less than human. The perfect hero and heroine battle the freaks, and guess who wins in the end?
- Create a hero, and give him a girlfriend--but make sure the hero is nice and bland. What's the difference between Simba, the hero of this film, and Aladdin? Nothing at all, other than being drawn differently. They're both young and naive; they both make a big mistake; they both correct that mistake by beating the Bad Guy once and for all. And the girlfriend must be equally bland, though at least in ALADDIN Princess Jasmine was a major character. In THE LION KING, the girlfriend is merely there for the hero to grow up with, and to bring him back to face his big mistake so that the movie can reach its climax. Why must the hero and his girlfriend be so generic and uninteresting? So that they won't overshadow the supporting characters, as we see in the next ingredient ....

- For comic relief (and merchandising), through in a few goofy characters to play the hero's friends. These characters always act silly, and they get the lion's share (pun intended) of the laughs, except during the climax when they stay by the hero's side and battle the bad guys.

- And of course, include a bunch of musical numbers. Ever since THE LITTLE MERMAID won the Oscars for Best Original Score and Best Song, Disney has been pushing its animated films as the last bastion of the Hollywood musical. Each of their animated films includes a bunch of bouncy numbers as filler, one Busby Berkeley surrealist musical number, and a sappy, treacly "love" song to get the audience all weepy-eyed.

When this formula works, it can awaken the child in us. I enjoyed THE LITTLE MERMAID, because it made the Disney films seem fresh and new again. I loved ALADDIN in spite of its flaws--but if it weren't for Robin Williams, that movie would have fallen flat on its face, because it was nothing but Disney formula. THE LION KING doesn't have Robin Williams; and while it does have James Earl Jones' booming baritone as Mufasa, the great king, that's not enough to keep this film from feeling like a re-hash. There's nothing new here, and there's not enough creativity to make it seem refreshing.

Sure, the animation's great--that's easy for Disney to do, because they've got millions of dollars to do it. But there's more to making a great film than merely dazzling the eyes, whether it's with animated lions, computer-generated dinosaurs or exploding bridges (which we'll see in TRUE LIES). As in all great movies, it's the story and the characters that count, and there's nothing in here that we haven't seen before. Mufasa himself is a regal, majestic figure; the comic-relief characters are funny; and the evil Scar is wicked and properly evil. But Disney has given us a long line of majestic, funny, and evil characters, from Cruella de Vil and Stromboli to Gaston and Iago; the characters in THE LION KING simply aren't charismatic enough to come out from the shadow of their predecessors.

As if to add insult to injury, the musical numbers are downright awful. There's nothing in here to match the catchy, joyful "Under The Sea and "Be Our Guest," or even the fun "Prince Ali" and "Never Had A Friend Like Me." The songs were written by Tim Rice (who also worked on the ALADDIN soundtrack) and Elton John--who also sings the "love theme" over the ending credits. Bleah. Disney is certain to push this soundtrack for the Oscar...but if it actually wins, it will be undeniable proof that taste is dead in Hollywood. There IS a reasonably good musical score by Hans Zimmer that's based on on African music (though why didn't Disney just bring in some real African musicians to compose it?), but that's about all the praise I can give it.

The problem is simply that we've seen it all before. Nothing is new here, and one gets the impression that Disney is merely spinning its wheels. The Disney formula is starting to wear thin ... but as long as it keeps making millions for the company, we're not going to see anything different.

In this respect, one can say that BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was the most original Disney film in a long time, because while it included many aspects of the Disney formula (animation, musical numbers, comedy relief characters), it actually worked on real characterization (at least on the part of the Beast himself) and an entertaining story (though I detested the character of Gaston). But that film proved to be an exception to the rule. ALADDIN, despite Robin Williams' delightful presence, was merely a return to the old formula ... the same formula that mires down THE LION KING.

This does not bode well for the long-term future of American animated films. Hollywood is falling once again into the trap of trying to imitate Disney, rather than experimenting with other ways of making animated films. But Walt Disney himself knew that if you don't keep looking forward and aiming for something new, fresh, and different, you're liable to dig your own grave.

Disney has reached the height of its popularity; in fact, it may have already passed that peak (note the troubles of Euro Disneyland). But if corporate history has any precedents, it is that the bigwigs at the top don't notice that the tree is sick until it's already rotten and ready to collapse or be cut down. I suspect that the same thing is starting with Disney: THE LION KING is merely one symptom of corporate rot that is starting to seep into the Disney empire--its movies are safe, non-controversial, and bland; the theme parks are expanding with seemingly endless re-hashes of the same few ideas (movie-based rides); and all of the company's other projects (the BEAUTY AND THE BEAST stage musical, or their proposed ceremonies for the World Cup tournament) consist of them spending money like water to flash and dazzle the eyes and promote themselves.

Answer 2

Simba, the prince of the animals' kingdom, whose life was not always happy. Simba's uncle, carried out an evil plan.To save his dear son, the old lion king died. And Simba, with his uncle taking his father's place, had no other choice but to flee. On his aimless road, he met two new friends, a weasel and a boar. They were hearty.

The friendship between Simba and the other two brought him great courage.Through efforts of himself and help from his friends, Simba finally defeated his uncle and became the king of the animals.

This film taught me that a friend in need is a friend indeed and that only through perseverance can one reach his goal.

Answer 3

Friendship, Courage and Peseverance

Simba, the prince of the animals' kingdom, whose life was not always happy. Simba's uncle, carried out an evil plan.To save his dear son, the old lion king died. And Simba, with his uncle taking his father's place, had no other choice but to flee. On his aimless road, he met two new friends, a weasel and a boar. They were hearty.

The friendship between Simba and the other two brought him great courage.Through efforts of himself and help from his friends, Simba finally defeated his uncle and became the king of the animals.

This film taught me that a friend in need is a friend indeed and that only through perseverance can one reach his goal.