+22

The Lion King is a great movie.

It is also an AMAZING musical.

No joke - first song, Circle of Life, all the animals start coming out, I thought I was going to cry. And then when Mufasa's saving Simba from the stampede and you know he's not going to make it - seriously almost cried again. Of course, I'm going to chalk my quick-draw emotions up to hormones, but it was still amazing.

The first thing that struck me was the complete ingenuity of the costumes. I just...I'm having a hard time even coming up with words to describe how unique, but appropriate, they were. Talk about suspended reality...there were puppets and stilts and wheels and strings and it was mind blowing.

I was also pleased that (for the most part) the character players attempted to emulate their cartoony counterparts. Timone sounded like Timone, Pumba sounded like Pumba, and so on and so forth. I mean, I'm all about thespians developing their own character and what not, but it's the Lion King, okay? Isn't it enough that they all had British accents?

Finally, I would just like to say that in all of London they couldn't find a young Simba that could stay on key? Really? Really?

If you ever get the chance to watch the Lion King in theatres, you'll be making a mistake by not going.