Review: The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar

Spoilers Below

In this movie, Simba has two cubs. Kiara is the oldest and destined to become Queen of the Pride Lands. Kion is her younger brother, who doesn’t quite have a destiny yet. While Simba trains Kiara to be Queen, Kion runs off to play with his friend Bunga, a honey badger who is somehow the nephew of Timon and Pumbaa. Cue the musical number.

During their game, the friends lose their piece of fruit in the Outlands. Of course, Kion is forbidden to go into the Outlands. Bunga claims he is not afraid of the Outlands and rushes in to retrieve the fruit. Once he crosses the border, he is confronted by a couple of hyenas. In an attempt to save his friend, Kion roars at the hyneas. However, this is not his usual roar. Dark clouds in the shape of lions roll in and the cub’s roar is much more fierce. He scares the hyenas, who drop Bunga and run away.

When Kion and Bunga return to Pride Rock, they find Rafiki dancing around like a crazy baboon and Simba looking somber. It turns out that the adults heard Kion’s roar from across the Pride Lands. Simba tells Kion that this is the Roar of the Elders. All of the ancient lions are roaring with him. This roar shows that he is the leader of the Lion Guard, a group of five lions that protected the Pride Lands. The last leader of the Lion Guard was Mufasa’s brother, Scar. When Scar realized how powerful the Roar of the Elders was, he decided that he should be King. He tried to get the rest of the Lion Guard to help him overthrow Mufasa but they refused. So Scar used the Roar against them, resulting in the destruction of the Guard and the loss of his Roar. Now that the Roar has come back, it is Kion’s job to assemble a new Lion Guard and protect the Pride Lands.

Kion immediately rushes out to fill the four open Guard positions. The first spot he fills is the Bravest. This goes to his friend, Bunga the honey badger. Next, he gets Beshte the hippopotamus as the Strongest. Ono, the cattle egret, is the Keenest of Sight. Finally, Fuli the cheetah is the Fastest. However, when Simba finds out the the Lion Guard doesn’t actually have any lions in it, except for Kion, he rebuffs his son’s decision. Simba tells the cub that the Lion Guard must be made up of lions. Disheartened by his father’s reaction, Kion sings a song then manages to have a heart to heart with his grandfather. Mufasa gives Kion the backbone to stand up for his decision and trust his instincts.

Meanwhile, Kiara found a pack of hyenas attacking gazelles in the Pride Lands. The princess sends her friend to bring Simba and the other lions to retaliate but they aren’t coming back fast enough. Luckily, Kion and his friends aren’t far away. Bunga finds out about the hyena attack and calls for Kion. The little cub formally inducts his friends into the Lion Guard and they get to work. He quickly works up a plan for them to defeat the hyenas.

Once the hyenas have stopped chasing the gazelles, Ono sees that the resulting stampede has put Kiara in danger. Bunga and Fuli rush in to save the princess. Simba, Nala, and Rafiki happen to arrive just in time to see the whole event go down. That is when Simba has to admit that Kion created a good Lion Guard.

Kion goes to make sure that the hyenas are heading back to the Outlands. Janja, the leader of the hyenas, steps up to confront the little cub. But Kion uses the Roar and scares all of the hyenas back to their homeland. But not before Janja promises to come back to defeat them.

Considering the new television show will be airing on Disney Junior, this wasn’t a completely terrible movie. There were quite a few musical numbers, which surprised me, and some of them were actually good. Granted, none of the songs are as amazing as the ones from the original movie, but Bunga has a song called “Zuka Zama” that is rather catchy. As for the voices, only a few of the actors returned to reprise their roles. It was a little weird hearing Rob Lowe’s voice come out of Simba’s mouth. Hopefully, he won’t be in the show very often. Overall, it was right in the middle of good and bad. If we’re lucky, Disney is saving the good stuff for the television show.