Brow Beat

Only Simba Can Avenge the Death of Cecil the Lion

Already weary of the outrage over the killing of Cecil the Lion, I was more than a little wary of this mashup that pairs the viral news story with one of my favorite childhood movies, The Lion King. But that was all before I actually watched “The Lion King: The Retribution of Cecil,” by comedy news channel So That Happened, which turns out to be a hilarious, morbid take on the whole situation that makes great use of voice-over narration and new, dubbed-in line readings. (Mufasa—er, Cecil’s—instructions to Simba for avenging his death are particularly harsh.) The lesson from all this: The circle of life is a lot darker than Disney imagined.