Beautiful Visuals but Lacking the Heart of the Orginal

Rating: 2/10 (22 July 2019)

Like just about anyone, I thought the visuals are gorgeous and an amazing feat of technology. The animals are beautifully realistic, but the movie's greatest feat is also it's greatest downfall. I'm sure you've heard it a thousand times already, but the lack of emotion on the character's faces is a glaring issue with this remake. Emotionally powerful scenes such as Mufasa's death and Simba seeing his father amongst the clouds have lost their power because of the lack of any emotion.
The story is overall exactly the same and may be the closest to a 1 to 1 remake of any of the Disney remakes so far. I wanted to keep as open of a mind as possible watching this, but I honestly couldn't finish it without becoming very bored because you cannot connect with the characters like you used to. We humans rely so much on faces for deciphering emotion and the characters have pretty much zero emotion because of the realistic take on them.
Comic relief characters such as Timon and Pumbaa cannot move with the same vigor and vive and rely 100% on the voices to get any response. Movies are a visual medium and this lack of movement and emotion really, really brings the movie down. The animals are just staring at each other with mouths that hardly move, making the movie seem like a nature documentary with people talking over the footage.
Another thing I found really disheartening was the removal of some powerful lines. When Mufasa dies, I knew not to expect much emotion from Simba, but his "Noooo!" was so underwhelming with a dead-eyed character model and lacking the dramatic zoom-out of the original. When Simba approaches his father's body, in the original, asks him multiple times to get up, tells him they have to get up, they have to go home and cries "Help! Somebody... anybody... help" before breaking down into tears. I still choke up at the scene.
Here, he only tells him to wake up once and screams "Help! Somebody, help!" before curling up next to his father. No tears were shed of course, because of the realism. That inclusion of "anybody" in the original and begging him to get up more than once really makes a difference. Such a powerful scene that made us all cry was ruined.
When Rafiki meets Simba again, the scene of Rafiki teaching him about the past hurting is cut. Rafiki in general isn't the same fun, eccentric, lovable character in the remake.
Then when Simba sees his father among the clouds, I was expecting something really magnificent because of what we can do with today's tech, but you'd be hard pressed to find Mufasa's image in the storm above as only occasional lightning flashes show the rough outline of his eyes and mouth, nowhere near as intense and beautiful as the original. And the once powerful line of "Simba, you have forgotten me. You have forgotten who you are, so you have forgotten me. Look inside yourself Simba, you are more than what you have become. You must take your place in the circle of life. Remember who you are. You are my son and the one true king. Remember who you are..."
Here Mufasa's sad excuse of an image says "Simba, you must take your place in the circle of life. You must remember who you are, the one true king. As king, I was most proud of one thing, having you as a son."
Simba says "That was a long time ago."
Mufasa replies with "That is forever"
Simba tells him not to leave him again and Mufasa says "I never left you and never will. Remember who you are."
Simba is left staring blanky into the sky as the storm clears. He does not try to run after him and I feel like Simba's actor could have delivered his lines with a bit more emotion since his character model has none.
While I think the inclusion of having Mufasa tell him that he will always be his son and will never leave him was touching, opening with telling him that he has forgotten him had a lot of power and its just gone.
A few more things I didnt like was the remake of "Be Prepared" and the way "Can you Feel the Love Tonight" was sung. Beyonce's powerful voice drowns out Donald Glover and you can barely hear him. Of course, the scene during the song is also dull with no expressions of love and the odd choice of being shot in daylight. And "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" lacked the fun of the original, again, because of the realistic approach. The fun animation of the original was replaced with Simba and Nala walking around a watering hole among some animals while singing. That's it.
The good things I can say is that I liked:

Seth Rogan and Billy Eichner as Timon and Pumbaa. I still prefer the originals, but they did really well as the comedic duo.
It was nice to hear James Earl Jones return as Mufasa.
The children who played young Simba and Nala did very well.
Scar's voice actor could never top Jeremy Irons, but he was still pretty good, though he still just lacked the same flamboyant, dastardly tone of the original.
The end fight scene was pretty impressive.
Hans Zimmer's gorgeous score is literally exactly the same with some extra instruments or vocals in some parts. This isn't a bad thing though since the score was already perfect.
Again, the visuals are really impressive but just don't work with the premise of The Lion King.

I haven't liked any of the remakes so far except The Jungle Book, which was pretty good. They've stomped on two of my favorites so far, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King so now I'm just waiting for them to ruin my last favorite, The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
If you have kids and want them to experience the magic you did as a child, please just watch the original as there is no magic to be seen here.