As it turns out, the rest of the film doesn’t quite live up to those first moments, despite a robust effort from the entire production team (most of whom were Disney’s second tier, with the A-Team ironically working on Pocahontas) and a game cast of voice talents who breathe life into their often one-dimensional characters. The story, which draws heavily on Biblical and Shakespearean allusions (but also manages to work in fart jokes and lines of dialogue from Taxi Driver and In the Heat of the Night), focuses on the regal rivalry between Mufasa and his sniveling younger brother Scar (Jeremy Irons), who bemoans his secondary status despite his superior intellect. Mufasa is grooming young Simba (Jonathan Taylor Thomas) to be heir to the throne when Scar conspires with a trio of hyenas (two of whom are voiced by Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech Marin) to knock off the king, banish Simba, and assume power with devastating consequences.

Once banished, Simba is taken in by an unlikely duo: a chatty meerkat named Timon (Nathan Lane) and a flatulent warthog named Pumbaa (Ernia Sabella) who teach him the philosophy of “hakuna matata” (which means “no worries”) in what is easily the film’s funniest and liveliest setpiece (Simba’s earlier song “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” is too cutesy for its own good and the film fails to deliver on the implied narcissism of the boy prince). Simba grows into adulthood (now voiced by Matthew Broderick) and, as all disgraced heroes must do, eventually returns to reclaim his kingdom from Scar’s clutches. That he does this at the behest of Nala (Moira Kelly), his childhood best friend and adult love interest, is the closest the film comes to any kind of female presence, which is interesting given that Disney’s previous animated films, including The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty & the Beast (1992), and Aladdin (1992), had all featured headstrong female characters (although they all clearly fell short of being genuinely progressive in their gender dynamics). The Lion King, on the other hand, is a male-centric story through and through, celebrating in no uncertain terms a boy’s growth into manhood and his natural claiming of his father’s power.

During the production, there was much doubt within the Mouse House that The Lion King would be successful. It was their first animal-centric movie since the underwhelming The Rescuers Down Under (1990) and it was the first Disney movie ever to be based on an original story, thus it didn’t fit with the studio’s most recent hits; even Jeffrey Katzenberg, who first suggested the idea back in the late 1980s, said he would have been elated if it had made $50 million. Nevertheless, it turned out to be not only one of the biggest animated hits of all time, but a genuine blockbuster that marked the high point of the Disney animation renaissance that had begun with The Little Mermaid five years earlier. The Lion King isn’t nearly as good as its phenomenal success might suggest, although it is significantly better than both the anemic films Disney was producing in the late 1970s and early 1980s and the Disney films that followed, which proved that the formula of underdog hero(ine), catchy musical numbers, and funny sidekicks has an expiration date (at least a temporary one). And, most importantly, for a generation of American kids, The Lion King is a defining film they will always love, and its recent ascent to the top of the box office charts in a 3-D re-release suggests that it still holds the power to move that generation’s children just as it moved them.

Copyright ©2011 James Kendrick

Thoughts? E-mail James Kendrick

All images copyright © Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment