#WeAreTeamHerron LOVED our Advanced Screening last week of Disney’s #TheLionKing!

Thanks to our friends at Leading & Loving It, we were able to see The Lion King 10 days before it's release... and it is a VISUAL STUNNER.

I had goosebumps twice: once during the first 5 minutes’ unbelievable shot-by-shot recreation of the 1994 animated hit, and again during the movie’s climactic final moments.

The writing was brilliant and director Jon Favreau skillfully slowed down the scenes you remember from the Summer of ‘94 to allow the audience more time to engage with the characters.

Also, John Oliver is an INSPIRED choice of voice’s for Zazu (I was laughing out loud).

Down-sides?

1) Scar’s ‘Be Prepared’ becomes a spoken-word mess instead of a call-to-arms for the villains.

2) The voices of Timon and Pumbaa were COMPLETELY MISCAST. Seth Rogan was excruciatingly off-pitch in all his songs, which disengaged the audience each time (as a parent, I also was taken out of the movie worried that Rogan’s casting would lead to an F-Bomb in front of my children).

Timon’s voice was equally unable to reach the heights of the ‘94 original; a better choice would have been John Mulaney.

Good News, though...

James Earl Jones was EPIC as Mufasa (Beyonce voiced Nala nicely, but her duet of ‘Can You Feel...’ was raspy and her new pop song about a spirit — whose spirit I am still unclear about — came off as clunky and Disney’s attempt at a cash-grab.