A good attempt

Rating: 6/10 (22 July 2019)

I'm just gonna go ahead and say it immediately. The Lion King has always been my favorite Disney movie. Thus, it may have an impact on my judgement and opinion.
If you're looking for a realistic retelling of The Lion King, to show your children instead of the original animated movie, then your kids are guaranteed to love this, given they haven't seen the original. If you're looking for a CGI version of your childhood movie, then you'll likely end up disappointed. Still, The Lion King remake does a great job when it does things right, and mostly sticks the landing when it deviates.
Now, first of all I'll be giving some good amounts of praise to the fantastic animation quality in the visuals. Thinking back at how we used to do hair and fur back in the day, in many cases being simple textures, it's incredible to see these majestic beasts move around with every single one of their many dozen thousand strands of hair swaying in the wind. Everything is absolutely beautiful, and the movie is a sight to behold.
The movie largely does a great job at telling the same story as the original. It's still largely the same, with a few (mostly welcome) deviations from time to time. It does suffer in places from the same issue I've had with the other remakes, with the story being quite different from the original in places, not always aiding the plot, which sometimes feel like a stain on the original, as anyone having not seen the originals won't know any different.
One thing which made all the difference to me, was how giving realistic lions exaggerated facial expressions, like gasping, curiosity or laughing, all requires a lion's face to do something which is physically impossible without it looking unrealistic and probably creepy. The movie makes a bold move and does its best. Still, overall the characters end up looking very much flat and boring compared to the original. It takes away from a large amount of the vibes and feelings the characters express, and many moments seem to fall on their backside as a result of this.
With that said, great kudos to the voice actors for an amazing job. A different experience in most areas doesn't necessarily mean a bad one.
So, as I said: this is an excellent and maybe even amazing movie for anyone who has never seen the original, but if you're there to rewatch the movie from your youth, you may end up quite disappointed.