Kritiken

It's structured like a savanna Bambi, with the trauma of a parent's death bisecting its coming-of-age story. But the emphatic vastness of The Lion King's canvas makes its forebear look like a modest romp through the forest. Propulsive set pieces through gorges and caverns alternate with gaudy musical extravaganzas.

Though it's somewhat less entertaining than The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin, The Lion King marks a welcome and fascinating shift in the Disney animated feature. . . . If my hunch is correct, these changes [multicultural casting] represent not so much a kowtowing to political correctness as a more accurate reckoning of Disney's stateside and international audience.

The Lion King doesn't so much invert the usual Disney principle as confound it: black doesn't become beautiful or white servile; rather, the categories get mixed up, stirred together into a melting pot. The lion hero, Simba, is seemingly white — Matthew Broderick is the voice — yet the lines of his father, Mufasa, are delivered by the recognizable voice of James Earl Jones; and Simba's first musical number, "I Just Can't Wait to Be King," has a distinct Michael Jackson sound.