The Lion King II: Simba's Pride

Ha! Did you think I would review Mufasa: The Lion King instead of this? I didn’t think so!

Seriously, though, tell me this. Have you ever been acquainted with the direct-to-video sequels that Disney kept churning out from way back when? If I were to ask anyone that question, the likeliest answer they’d give is that they wish they hadn’t.

8 times out of 10, Disney perpetually made those so-called ‘sequels’ to capitalize on its most profitable animated classics. Judging from the low bar set in each film and how generic or forgettable they ended up becoming, it’s clear they were among the primary examples of moviemaking at its lowest form because it’s obvious they were all meant to rake in extra cold, hard cash for Disney over anything else. 

Fortunately, that practice was nixed after John Lasseter was promoted as a Disney executive in 2006. It was among the actions that led Disney to reclaim its prestige in animation throughout the 2010s. Despite all that, however, one of the films from this category that many people thought was anything but a bad film and had some strong artistic merits was The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride.

I only knew of this movie through its promos, but unlike many others, I had not been fortunate enough to have seen it when I was younger. Not only did I not feel interested in it, but the original Lion King is one of my all-time favorite movies. Considering this was a direct-to-video sequel, I hesitated to watch it, knowing it would be different and not as good as the first film. So finally, after seeing this, what do I think of it?

Well, for a direct-to-video sequel, this deserved so much better. And by that, I mean so much better than how it turned out.

But first, let me tell you all about the story. 

Set years after the end of the first Lion King, Simba, Nala, their family, and their friends were comfortably settled in the Pride Lands when Simba and Nala were blessed with a daughter named Kiara. As she grew up, Simba wanted to see to it that she did not get hurt or into trouble. So, after Simba – somewhat understandably, given their history together – sends Timon and Pumbaa out to be her bodyguards, Kiara snuck away from them and into a different part of the Pride Lands called the Outlands. There, she ran into a young lion cub named Kovu. After going through a few mishaps together, like in an alligator pit, their collaboration eventually drew the attention of Simba and even Kovu’s mother, and the leader of the Outlands, named Zira. 

She was Scar’s former follower and possible lover when he used to rule the Pride Lands. And she and the rest of her pride, called the Outsiders, wanted nothing more than to reclaim what they thought was rightfully theirs, as was Scar’s during his reign. Since then, Kiara grew up to be the designated princess and future Lion Queen of the Pride Lands, while Kovu grew up with a noticeably ingrained belief that anyone who came from the Pride Lands was his enemy. At one point, Kiara went out again, this time for her first hunting practice, before being ambushed by a couple of the Outsiders, specifically Nuka, Kovu’s brother, and their sister, Vitani. However, as Kiara attempted to flee the fires, she fell unconscious before being rescued by Kovu. 

There, they started rekindling their friendship from when they were young. Yet, because it drew Simba’s and Zira’s attention once again, it caused Simba to not trust the Outsiders in their plot to overthrow Pride Rock, least of all Kiara in terms of her going out behind his back to reunite with whom he considered the enemy. Not making things easier was that Kovu was taken in by Scar, whom Simba despised so much. From there, it’s a battle between the Pridelanders and the Outsiders, with Kiara and Kovu being stuck in the middle of this conflict. What was going to become of the Pride Lands and the Outsiders? And would Kiara and Kovu have had any ideas to stop the fight before it escalated into something worse?

Let me explain in a little more detail what I find fascinating about The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride, outside of its being declared a potential diamond in the rough. 

After it came out on home video in October 1998, it sold like hotcakes, becoming one of the highest-grossing direct-to-video films, period. And notwithstanding The Lion King 1 ½, which came out in 2004, the legacy this film inspired was so strong that Kiara, Kovu, and some of the Outsiders would eventually reappear in The Lion King’s midquel series, The Lion Guard. And, of course, Kiara made her ‘live-action debut’ in Mufasa: The Lion King, too. God help us.

Knowing what kind of impression this left behind, I grew up becoming more intrigued about what this film could have done to win over so many people, especially since I’m already a hardcore fan of the original Lion King.

After watching the movie after 26 years, it has so many different aspects to this film that would have rightfully earned it its reputation as a high-quality follow-up. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suffer from the drawbacks this film dealt with as a direct-to-video sequel.

To start, let’s talk about the songs.

The first one, ‘He Lives in You,’ is a comfortingly uplifting song about the presence and longevity of those who we loved and have passed on watching over us, reassuring us that as long as we keep them alive in our memories, they will never die. It is also a carryover from the Lion King-inspired album Rhythm of the Pride Lands and even the Lion King musical. Heck, one of the shots in the opening sequence pays homage to the Broadway show’s visual interpretations of ‘Circle of Life’. But because ‘He Lives in You’ was such a popular song in correlation with The Lion King, it seemed like an adequate number to start this movie with.

Some of the other songs in the movie were also decent at best. 

For example, Zira’s song, ‘My Lullaby’, is just her boasting about her dreams to take back Pride Rock from Simba and claim it as her own, all while dramatically strutting around the caves. It is an appropriately intimidating song fit for Zira and the Outsiders, but for all its outgoing and black-hearted instincts, it just didn’t convey any of the rhythms and weight that ‘Be Prepared’ did when Scar went all out in boasting about his ambitions.

One musical number that sounded musically hefty but ended up feeling weird in execution is the song, ‘One of Us.’ To make a long story short, this detailed Kovu’s exile from the Pride Lands by Simba after he mistakenly believed that Kovu deliberately led him into a trap as a plot orchestrated by Zira, which was half true except for where Kovu tried to help the Pridelanders instead of take advantage of them. The song was just Kovu being harassed and ridiculed by the local Pridelanders as he walked away from the Pride Lands while Kiara struggled to break free and help Kovu. Most of the vocals in this song were terrific, but to see that coming from the African wildlife, including an inappropriately-toned hippopotamus, makes this number feel slightly more awkward than it meant to be.

Rafiki’s song ‘Upendi’ also seemed pretty weird, but it was stylistically weird. In this case, Rafiki encouraged Kiara and Kovu through song to admit their feelings for each other. Even though Rafiki initially found the romance a little wacky, after being supposedly told so by Mufasa’s spirit, he thought there might be a chance for Kiara and Kovu. The first time I saw the song, I thought of it as a mix between ‘I Just Can’t Wait To Be King’ and ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight?’. 

But let me explain what worked about both those songs that did not work in this song. In ‘I Just Can’t Wait To Be King,’ the characters wandered through the African plains accompanied by splashy colors and zany imagery to go with the music. But it worked because it represented a child’s imagination as he fantasized about becoming a king someday. ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight?’ puts the romantic urges front and center as the two main leads slowly got reacquainted and admitted their feelings for each other. 

With ‘Upendi’, I find it tonally inconsistent. For a song that attempted to pay attention to the romantic urges between Kiara and Kovu, it conflicted with all the wacky imagery and stylized colors that accompanied Rafiki’s singing and fantasies. So, as upbeat as a song as it is, and as much as it utilized some African rhythms to add to its authenticity, it didn’t fit for me.

Fortunately, however, the romantic urges I spoke of that were not prevalent in this song were saved for the real romantic ballad of this film, ‘Love Will Find a Way’. This song carries some weight, even compared to ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’, because it occurred after Kovu was banished away from the Pride Lands and after he voluntarily left the Outsiders out of disgust against them. This song did a good job of addressing the hardships both he and Kiara had to go through while never forgetting that the love they shared for each other was paramount and that, if anything, love could potentially conquer all. These mannerisms were especially prominent during the end title version of this song, performed by Heather Headley and Kenny Lattimore.

And finally, there’s the one song in the film that I thought was very solid and felt like a genuine Lion King song: ‘We Are One’. That was practically the melodic equivalent of what Mufasa talked about regarding the Circle of Life in the last film and what occurs within the Pride Lands, from how the animals live off the land as an undivided whole to how they need to take what life throws at them one step at a time before finally being ready to accomplish some things that the more adult animals can achieve. All the while, Kiara flipped back and forth between taking Simba’s lesson to heart and wanting to be independent again. The melodies in this song were pretty upbeat and felt culturally fitting for a demonstration of life in the African plains. And every time I heard its melody throughout the film, I could tell it was one of its main themes, and it made sense. 

Of course, as much as I admire what the songs attempted to do in this film, they came nowhere close to matching what Elton John and Tim Rice unleashed with the songs in the last movie. They are just a bonanza in music and songwriting, especially by one of the most prolific rock stars in the world. On the other hand, the songwriters who wrote these songs seemed a tad second-rate by comparison.

But let’s talk about the story and characters.

As far as the story is concerned, one of the most substantial aspects of this film is that it continued the story of the Pride Lands with Simba as the King, showing the consequences of what unfolded from the first film, with the Pride Lands being taken over by Scar, the ruins it left behind, and what kind of influence, if any, spread upon some of the more unsavory animals who lived in the Pride Lands before Simba returned. The idea of seeing animals like the Outsiders act out and do their own thing in competition against the Pride Lands resulted in some genuinely intriguing conflict that I would never have expected to see occur in anything under the Lion King name.

But it’s one thing for this movie to carry so much intrigue among the local wildlife of the Pride Lands. Some moments in this film were surprisingly dark, even compared to the first Lion King. 

For example, when Kovu and Simba wandered into the Outlands by accident and were ambushed by Zira and the Outsiders, Kovu tried to save Simba from them, even though it led Simba to think that he was led into a trap by Kovu. After Simba narrowly escaped by climbing on several logs, Nuka, Kovu’s older brother, followed Simba when some of the logs tumbled under Simba’s weight and downright fell on Nuka. And a minute later, he died. And I don’t mean like Mufasa in the last film, where he died offscreen even though he was killed. In this case, we see him pass away right in front of a heartbroken Zira. It makes this film feel more unconventional as a direct-to-video sequel from Disney when you have it not only continue what went on in the first film but also throw in some dark material like this.

But what really shocked me was the ending when Zira was cornered and defeated. After Kiara asked Simba what was different about the Outsiders from the rest of the Pridelanders, one by one, all of the lionesses, including Vitani, crept towards Simba in an innermost agreement with her, thus leaving Zira all alone. Outraged, she attempted to kill Simba herself as a favor for Scar, only for Kiara to step in and wrestle with her as they tumbled down a cliff. But before they landed all the way to the bottom, Zira was hanging on for dear life, with Kiara reaching down to help her up, especially as the logs from earlier burst open to unleash a torrent of water that became a raging river beneath them. And just as Kiara had finally reached her, Zira fell from the cliff and into the river to her death. But there’s one little detail about this that makes it even more drastic. When Zira was falling, notice the grin on her face. If you think that was just an error on the animators’ part, what I’m about to tell you next will tell you that no, it wasn’t. 

Originally, Kiara was trying to help Zira up, but then, Zira looked down at the river and back up at Kiara. Knowing that either the spirit of Scar or of her son, Nuka, was down there, she responded to Kiara’s attempts with two words.

No. Never.

And that’s when she fell into the river below. In which case, that means she fell into the river not by gravity but by choice, which, by technicality, would make this otherwise common death among Disney villains be painted as a straight-up suicide.

Wow. That is Hunchback-of-Notre-Dame-level dark. You wouldn’t think that a sequel to a Disney film, let alone a Disney film, would have touched upon the subject of suicide or even hinted at it, but to see that in a sequel to one of the biggest and most popular movies under the Disney name is bound to raise some eyebrows, in a good way. It adds to the more shocking factors of what this ‘direct-to-video’ sequel could unleash, and regardless of its ultimate outcome, it would at least open its audience’s eyes to uncomfortable real-life subjects like this one. The only other Disney death I can think of that matches this tone would be the death of Clayton when he hanged himself by mistake in Tarzan. 

But that’s not the only thing there is to report about the story.

Remember how the original Lion King was based on Hamlet, complete with reusing the same familiar beats from Shakespeare’s play to enhance the dramatic effects of the film’s story? The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride does the same thing, except with a different play. In this case, when you look at the story and who the center of attention is, it’s evident that this film borrowed elements from Romeo and Juliet. 

Think about it. Kiara plays the role of Juliet. Kovu plays the role of Romeo. The conflict between the Pridelanders and the Outsiders is reminiscent of that between the Montagues and the Capulets. Nuka keeps calling me back to either Mercutio or Tybalt. And I swear, if Timon and Pumbaa in the first film are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from Hamlet, it seems to me that Rafiki was meant to fill the role of Friar Laurence. So, even if I were introduced to this movie as a young kid, as would anyone else, we would have had our decent early taste of Shakespeare and been as impressed by the film’s connections to Shakespeare as we would’ve been with the first film upon its own connections. It only makes me understand now how this film would have been seen as a worthy follow-up to something like The Lion King. 

And as for the characters in this movie, that’s a little hard to narrow down. Let’s start with some of the returning characters who came back.

Rafiki, who I thought was just a funny and wisecracking mandrill in the first film, doesn’t seem to be playing as much of a role here as I thought he would have played, especially when you consider what he represented in this Lion King follow-up. He just did Simba’s bidding and attempted to help Kiara and Kovu out in secret, and that’s pretty much it.

With Timon and Pumbaa, they also proved themselves as decent comedic sidekicks with one fart joke or bug joke after another, but they did feel a little flamboyant, and on a few occasions throughout the movie, they felt slightly overkill regarding their comedic effect.

In terms of them being Kiara’s bodyguards, I feel that responsibility should have been given to Zazu, who was still around and with them in this movie. If Zazu had not done his duties because he practically retired as a majordomo, that would have made sense, but even then, I also acknowledged that Zazu had been around since Simba was born. I understand that animals age differently, and that’s usually not followed very often in Disney films. But I wonder exactly how long hornbills would have lived and whether Timon and Pumbaa would have upheld their duties as much as Zazu had for Simba under Mufasa’s orders. Perhaps somebody would have trusted Zazu to watch over Kiara since that’s what he did for Simba when he was Kiara’s age. But I guess it would have been this way because one, Simba trusted Timon and Pumbaa after having grown up with them for a while. And two, I feel like the filmmakers caught on to how popular Timon and Pumbaa were and possibly thought, ‘The more of them in the movie, the merrier.’ But as I’m sure many people pointed out, for all their hilarious antics, everything about Simba, Nala, Kiara, Kovu, and the others’ side of the story added so much meat to it, so to speak, that there’s only so long that Timon and Pumbaa’s levity would have carried the movie through before it had to shift back to the bigger picture. And with Timon and Pumbaa, while they are still funny on their own, they tend to go a touch overboard compared to the first film.

Zazu was practically pointless as he was in the movie, for he barely did anything outside of acting as Simba’s right-palm bird, just like he was to Mufasa in the first film. Zazu did not even comment on how he thought Simba was as a king compared to how he was when he was young or whether Simba did anything that would have proven his worth as a king of the Pride Lands.

If anything, Nala filled that role more. Before I saw this movie, I was worried that she would not play as significant a role as she did in the last film. And true, outside of acting as Simba’s emotional crutch, she did not play as much of a role in this film as I feared she would not have. But there’s just something about her instinctive nature that I admire. Every time I see her talking to Simba about his problems, I see Nala speaking to him not just as his wife but also as his best friend since childhood. Even if Simba was in self-exile for a good portion of their lives, I can still sense that Nala knew Simba like the back of her paw and was willing to help in any way she knew how. I find it interesting what you can feel out of characters like Nala rather than what you see them do.

I don’t think I’ve seen Sarabi anywhere in this film. I wonder if it’s because she passed away from old age or something.

Anyway, let’s hop on to the new characters in the film.

The villain, Zira, is pretty intimidating and conniving. She wanted to steer herself and her pride closer to the Pride Lands by relying on some of her children to accomplish the tasks for her, primarily Kovu since she saw him as the quote ‘chosen one,’ much to the dismay of Kovu’s siblings, which I’ll talk about very shortly.

Sure, her motivations may seem a little petty, but considering her connections with Scar, as she claimed to have had before Simba returned to the Pride Lands, It does add some intrigue to her as a character. However, some elaborations on what lessons she thought she picked up from Scar during his reign would have been helpful.

Her eldest son, Nuka, seemed like a pretty unfocused and desperate lion. He looked like a much scragglier, younger version of Scar, except he was always jealous of Kovu’s respectability and expectations to lead the Outsiders back into Pride Lands. Being the eldest, he wanted to be treated with the same respect that Kovu always had to make Zira proud and accomplish what he did not believe Kovu would have done. 

As for the sister, Vitani, I didn’t think there was enough written about her to make her compelling. There were some hints of her being the more levelheaded among the siblings, the one who took her mother’s words and lessons to heart and trusted Kovu to live up to his duties and follow through on them for the sake of the Outsiders. Other than that, however, she just looked like a scragglier version of Kiara, even as she grew up into teenagerhood.

But now, that leaves us with the three main characters.

Hopping over to Kiara, I found her to be a slightly respectable young lady with a bright future ahead of her in Pride Rock, but she always felt bothered by how she was always kept watch by either Timon and Pumbaa or by Simba when Kiara felt like she was ready to launch on her own free will, do things for herself, and judge things for herself and others too, starting with Kovu. It was intriguing to see her attempt to be her own lioness when not under Simba’s watchful eye. But after meeting up with Kovu, watching Kiara gradually come to grips with what Kovu is to the Pride Lands and what that makes the rest of the lionesses who follow him gradually intriguing, if also not substantial enough to contribute to Kiara’s potential as a new main lead of The Lion King.

On the other hand, the following two characters are the most intriguing part of the film and carry the weight of what occurred within it.

Starting with Kovu, he was the destined ‘chosen one,’ trusted to lead the Outsiders out of their barren wasteland and back into Pride Lands, where they believed they belonged. But as he grew up, he began to acknowledge the Pride Lands for what they are rather than what his family and the Outsiders wanted him to believe, catching on to how peaceful the Pride Lands are and eventually how wrong his family’s methods of taking it over by force was. It got to a point where he was conflicted with himself as to whose side he should be on.

Should he prove his love to Kiara and join the Pride Lands or stick to his commitment as the A-member of the Outsiders and lead his pride back to Pride Rock to reclaim it? Must he take back Pride Rock or join it? Those are the questions whirling around in his head ever since he met Kiara, and I find him to be the most intriguing of the pair in this film. 

As for Simba himself, what he expressed in this movie proved to me how much wonders the movie did in abiding by Simba’s character when you look at what he endured throughout his adventures in the first film. Even in the first scene, when Kiara was about to go out and play, Simba asked Timon and Pumbaa to keep an eye out on her since he knows she can be a little reckless. And I can tell that Simba tried very hard to have Kiara be nothing like how he used to be when he was her age: always frolicking, careless, and unobservant of the dangers that could’ve crawled in every corner. But as someone who dealt with the same experiences that Kiara was about to go through, I can understand his struggles as a parent, down to how much he should watch over her and how much of her he should let go so that she can grow up into being her own lioness.

While the whole subplot with the Outsiders came out of nowhere, the idea that they were connected with Scar and that, due to such connections, Simba expressed an innermost contempt and disgust against them adds layers of conflict to this picture that only contributed to the intrigue this film promises. Everything Simba did as the King of the Pride Lands in this movie was fascinating and like a refreshing detour from how Mufasa may have proven himself as the King of the Pride Lands. It can also show you that experience can shape up a king. They’re not without inner struggles as to what they consider the right thing to do, either as royalty or a parent. And it’s not like when Mufasa chased away the hyenas in the first film when they tracked down Simba and Nala. Watching Simba chase away the Outsiders because of their associations with Scar and what he feared they could have done to Kiara only added a little more moral nuance to this film, which in turn only added to the moral nuance apparent in Simba to boot. To me, that goes a long way.

As for Kiara and Kovu’s relationship? Whenever they were together, I liked how it started off as innocent before it blossomed into something much deeper and more powerful. Whenever the conflict between the Pridelanders and the Outsiders erupted, Kiara and Kovu felt like they tried their best to dig their way through all the prejudices hurled against each other and attempted to be there for one another. At one point, Kovu suggested they could run away together, even though Kiara reminded him that you never can or should run away from your problems. I wonder if Simba ever told Kiara about how he dealt with the murder of Mufasa when he thought he was responsible for it.

Regardless, their perseverance and persistence make me admire Kiara and Kovu as a couple. In addition, whether they were kids or teenagers, I find it adorable how Kiara was playful with Kovu at some times and flirty with him at others, while Kovu wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

I also want to pay attention to the voice actors in this movie. Many of them did their best with the script they were given, and from what they managed to deliver out of their characters, they still did a mostly good job. 

I was fond of the voice actress who voiced Zira, Suzanne Pleshette. The conniving tones in her voice and the slithery inflections she expressed as she voiced out Zira’s desires to reclaim the Pride Lands all helped convey her character with a far more sinister and unorthodox angle that only feels like a less sane equivalent of what Jeremy Irons conveyed in Scar in the first film. I’m also fond of Andy Dick, who voiced Nuka. Whenever he played him, he expressed more of the excitable and impulsive antics Nuka expressed whenever he was jealous of Kovu or attempted to prove his worth, only to back out over the most seemingly harmful situations. So, even though he may have lived up to the wrong aspects of the Cowardly Lion, it still made him as delightful as he was intimidating. 

For all the little involvement Vitani had in this film, I admire the voice actresses who played her, both Lacey Chabert when she was a child and Meredith Scott Lynn as a teenager. They helped convey the youth and the general seriousness of what Vitani grew up believing of the Pride Lands and the Outsiders’ devotion to take it back from Simba. There’s a slight cutesiness in their voices but enough aggression in their tones to convince me that Vitani was among the more committed Outsiders who wanted to take back the Pride Lands.

The two voice actors who conveyed Kovu all did an outstanding job expressing every aspect of his character. Ryan O’Donohue, who voiced Kovu when he was a cub, conveyed him with the innermost boyish instincts as he prowled about thinking he was braver than anyone else in the Pride Lands, only for certain dangers to take him by surprise and leave him a shaken wreck of a cub. And this is Jason Marsden, AKA Max Goof, doing the voice of the teenage Kovu. Every time I heard him play this character, he conveyed more aggression and commitment out of Kovu, which made me fear that he was on the verge of becoming one of the Outsiders in terms of their dedication to reclaiming the Pride Lands. But as Kovu spent more time with Kiara and her friends, he slowly but surely started mellowing up until he expressed his playful side like he had when he was younger and met Kiara. He still maintained his commitment even if, this time, his expressions started to show more of his sense of alliance with whom he trusted at that point. So I thought both actors were terrific here. 

As for the voice actresses who voiced Kiara, Michelle Horn and Neve Campbell, they all did a decent job with their character. They both excelled in conveying Kiara with the same inner playfulness and longing to break away as her own lioness while still expressing her youthful instincts. Neve Campbell also excelled in conveying her like Michelle Horn did when Kiara was a cub. Only this time, she unleashed more womanly instincts out of Kiara. As if to say, she was at a stage where she was still young but also on the verge of making her own decisions on such crucial matters as what went on between Simba and the Pridelanders and Zira and the Outsiders. 

So, all the voice actors who joined this film to voice the new characters gave it their all in bringing the characters to life the same way the others did for the returning characters.

Before I hop on to them, the only difference in voice actors among the returning characters is the voice of Zazu. Rather than Rowan Atkinson, as in the first film, Zazu was replaced by Edward Hibbert, and I was not very amused by how he played Zazu.

I can tell that he tried to convey the more sophisticated aspects of his character, but whenever he did, he did not capture that and instead came across as a bit of a socialite wannabe. Compare that to Rowan Atkinson, who conveyed just the right and adequately dignified aspects with Zazu and a sense of articulacy and professionalism with him. You can feel his authority from underneath Zazu’s more modest shell as a hornbill. So it’s a shame that the actor who came to do the voice of Zazu in this film could not have lived up to what Rowan Atkinson mastered of his character in the first film.

But that’s the only bad part of voice acting among the returning voice actors. The rest of the voice actors I’m about to pay attention to all returned here from the first film. 

Robert Guillaume as Rafiki, Matthew Broderick as Simba, Moira Kelly as Nala, James Earl Jones as Mufasa whenever he spoke, and, of course, Ernie Sabella and Nathan Lane as Timon and Pumbaa. They all excelled in conveying their characters with the same naturalness and inflections as they had upon the characters in the last film.

Ernie Sabella and Nathan Lane still mastered the comedic banter and antics expected from Timon and Pumbaa, especially since they mastered that throughout the TV spinoff series devoted to them.

With Matthew Broderick, every time I heard him play Simba in this film, I felt some of the slight lightness in his voice, like he still carried the same childlike instincts he brought with him from when he was a kid. But this time, I feel like he conveyed him more as a conflicted king who tried to grapple with the reality of his daughter’s maturity and his position as the King of the Pride Lands when comparing it to how he was when he was a reckless youngster like Kiara was at the beginning of the film. I can feel all of that inner angst, softness, and even occasional aggression with him based on Simba’s experiences in the first film. While it may not have amounted to a potent performance like James Earl Jones did with Mufasa when he was a king, I can still tell that Matthew Broderick excelled in conveying Simba as a king with much loftier, softer and more considerate ideals, even if they may not have been as severe as what Mufasa dealt with. So I still admire what Broderick conveyed out of Simba in this film.

Robert Guillaume continued to master the same quirky, wacky antics out of Rafiki every time he voiced him, but I can’t explain it. In this movie, I sensed more of the wackiness with Rafiki than I can with his veiled wisdom, as he did in the first film. Perhaps because the moviemakers wanted to appeal to the children, they wanted to heighten Rafiki’s wacky antics just like they did with Timon and Pumbaa’s comedic banter in this film. But I still think that’s the only disadvantage that these actors went through as they returned to voicing their characters again.

With Moira Kelly voicing Nala, I still listen to her feeling like she conveyed the same tenderness and consideration for Simba as she had in the last film. Even if Nala was underutilized as a character in this film, what Moira Kelly conveyed of her character never missed a beat.

Now, before I forget, let’s talk about the animation. Knowing that this is a direct-to-video sequel, I knew that it was going to not have as much of an impressive effect throughout the whole movie as it did in the first film. When I look at the animation in the first film, I was just at a loss for words as to how atmospheric, colorful, translucent, beautiful, and serene it all feels, not to mention how slightly foreboding it can feel whenever it shows some of the more suspicious looking locales, like the Elephant Graveyard and the cliffs where Scar and the hyenas plotted their next attack. 

This movie gets a general feel of the local African landscapes and some of the more uncompromising aspects of the Outlands and other such locations beyond the great Pride Lands. But they seemed marginally sketchy and did not carry as much detail and massive scope as in the first film. And with the animation on the characters, I feel like there’s more of a roughness and slight jumpiness with the characters in this movie, as opposed to in the first movie, where all the characters were animated with more noticeable smoothness to them, not just in their expressions, but also in their movements.

Now, some of the designs of the Outsiders are pretty impressive. The designs of the Outsiders represented how they would have been followers of Scar. Still, the scraggly state from most of them highlights just how much in a decrepit state they were after being forced to dwell there by Simba as punishment for their collaborations with Scar against Pride Rock and its hierarchy. I do miss the majesty of the animation in the first film, but from what they could pull off with the animation in a direct-to-video sequel, the animators still did a remarkable job with what they could have expressed of the familiar landscapes and characters in this film.

Altogether, every time I look back on what The Lion King accomplished, I feel like this film had so many good ideas as to what it had to tell that there were some other aspects that I wish had been added to the film to make it more cohesive as a follow-up and a sequel, not to mention a film. For example, I feel like the movie could have utilized some scenes that called back to what happened during Scar’s reign in the middle of the first film. That way, it could have shed light on how Zira and her fellow pride came to be acquainted with someone as devious, manipulative, and power-hungry as Scar and his fellow hyenas.

Even then, a direct-to-video sequel to an animated film from Disney was precisely what Toy Story 2 was about to be before it was given the same budget as the first film and a theatrical release to match. Even further, Moana 2 was meant to be a Disney+ limited series before being reworked as a theatrically released sequel. And look how well they both did since then.

Why not this?

This film could easily have been just a quick cash grab, and while it seemingly carries those instincts, what it conveys in everything else carries a more magnificent aspect in its intentions. Everything else about the movie carries such inner magnificence that it was little wonder that many fans held this film in supremely high regard compared to all the other sequels made by Disney in this format; it was just a cut above the rest. The characters are intriguingly varied. The designs are familiar in some places and distinct in others. The songs, while different from those from the first film, are still decent. The voice acting still gets the job done, and the literary parallels this movie expresses are some of the most prominent aspects of the film that only continued what the first Lion King started. Having grown up with Romeo and Juliet as part of my high school assignments, I cannot help but appreciate this movie for how much of a distinct take it had on a classic story while still standing on its own two feet as a different film that achieved more connections and a long-lasting legacy under the shadow of its more successful predecessor than we would ever have expected it to as a direct-to-video sequel.

So, let me put it to you this way: this film is no rose by any other name that would smell as sweet. But by God, does it come close to being one!

My Rating

B