Ratings and impressions from watching the Ukrainian version of The Lion King 3D in the cinema
On 28 July 2011, the Ukrainian premiere of the animated film "The Lion King 3D" took place. It was the world's first open premiere of the 3D version of the film — before that, it had only been shown at a festival in Scotland. I couldn't pass up such an opportunity, so on the day of the premiere I headed to the "Multiplex" cinema in Mykolaiv, since in Kherson there's still no place where you can properly watch a film on a big screen.
I hadn't been to a cinema in about seven years and had never seen 3D films, while I've watched TLK countless times, so I won't be able to assess what I saw adequately. Likewise, I'm not Russian and can't judge how "hilarious" the Ukrainian translation is.
Yes, here the film runs with Ukrainian dubbing. The translation itself was done well. Some of the lines are adapted for our audience, some are slightly changed to match the timing. Because of this, the meaning of some expressions is lost or altered, but the picture remains coherent. And considering that the main audience is children, everything is great, because it keeps the simplicity of perception that would have been lost if the translation had been very close to the original. For me the Ukrainian version of the translation is better than the Russian one, though I watched the film with the Russian voice acting a very long time ago.
With the voice acting, things are much worse. It doesn't look like they spent much money on the actors. The voices are basically fine, but they're a long way from the Hollywood stars. Jeremy Irons, James Earl Jones, Rowan Atkinson and the others have such distinctive voices — maybe that's why the dub actors come across so poorly, since I'm used to those. But something is clearly off with Scar — sometimes he overacts, sometimes he underacts, the intonations are lacking. Jeremy Irons played the role superbly, while in the Ukrainian version the character's voice acting turns out worse than the rest, which don't stir up much emotion anyway — neither positive nor negative. The same goes for the songs. Circle of Life and Can You Feel the Love Tonight don't move me, but they don't come off negatively either.
The quality of the stereo picture comes out somewhere between the quality of the translation and the voice acting. The 3D is interesting to watch, you often forget about it, but it's not perfect. Sometimes the moving characters shimmer and flicker, especially the smooth contours of the lions' bodies. The depth doesn't carry over evenly from frame to frame, and you get jumps with backward shifts. This is noticeable from the first minutes, which immediately slightly disappoints. The originally three-dimensional scene of the wildebeest stampede looks magnificent, especially its beginning — the image together with Hans Zimmer's music gives me chills and goosebumps. The final fight in slow motion is also impressive in 3D, but less so. On the whole, there are upsides to 3D, but I wouldn't mind watching the regular version on a big screen.
Because of the wide screen, another drawback surfaces — the bottom and top of the image are heavily cropped, which catches the eye right away and keeps spoiling the impression throughout the viewing.
On the whole, I was pleased with the viewing. I went to the last of the three screenings, which started at 13:35. By a rough count there were up to 20 people in the hall, which is very few. There's hardly going to be much profit from the showing — they've already lowered the prices on the regular tickets from 40 UAH to 25 UAH.
If we're talking about ratings, then I rate the translation a 5-, the voice acting a 3+, the 3D a 4- and the cartoon itself a 5+ :)