Music cut, poorly cast, and the emphasis set on the wrong parts of the story.

Rating: 3/10 (17 August 2019)

As almost every other review states, the music was a huge problem. While it may seem more "raw" than the original to not mix out the singers' compensations (i.e. singing "t" sound instead of "d" sound), the lack of polish was far inferior to the original. Furthermore, if you're going to stick to the same story to the original, you can't cut out or abbreviate songs as they did. One last note on the audio, the mastering was terrible... all over the place. As the original was highly prized for its music, this attempt really is a slap in the face.
On casting, for the most part not too bad. The primary issue i had was with the actor playing Timon... what? Why not pick someone who can at least act a personality? His role of "guru" in the storyline was completely absent. There was no semblance of chemistry between he and Pumba. I like the actor that voiced Pumba, but there needed to be more personality added considering they couldn't compensate using animation. These two characters are the primary influence on the young Simba, and therefore are even more important to get correct than Nala. Huge failure here as well. I liked everyone else. I thought Scar lacked the evil flare not being Jeremy Irons, but he did fairly well.
Lastly, terrible choices in elongating certain scenes for emphasis. Mufasa's death scene should've been way shorter. There must have been millions of wildebeests running by. Emphasizing this scene just further points out the illogical process of trying to rescue Simba any further. Once he laid low on the hillside, no need to do anything but run alongside the wildebeests... other scenes had this issue as well, no need to elaborate.
All around, it could've been good, but wasn't. And by not making it at least as good as the original, it just puts a black eye on the whole project. Disney would've done better to just make it a different story altogether.