Somebody took away the Lion's heart, along with its b@lls.

Rating: 3/10 (17 November 2019)

Sterile, soulless, rushed and pointless. Having had real animals perhaps they could have obtained some sort of emotion out of some.
You could say that it could work like a 3d filter for the original hand drew film if you prefer technique over artistry, but the original script and some imagery gets watered down.
The whole movie seems like the recording of a cold reading of the original script with some downgrades here and there to make it more baby "safe" while the Hans Zimmer's 1994 soundtrack is being played on the background.
No elephant graveyard; no nazi references, lines like "Murderer, you don't deserve to live" cannot be found in here. "Scar, brother, help me" is reduced to "Scar help me" to avoid children to think about the fact that the villain is killing his own brother.
It is curious that there is a lack of close ups that could have helped the character emote anything. The color palette is mute as any other movie out there which is odd because this one wanted to appeal to a younger audience than the original's.
If you leave wondering how they extended an 88 minutes long script to 118 minutes while having all the characters lines rushed, the answer if simple, they added a lot of walking.
Time is not an excuse, so how can a shorter animated and older version be more mature and express a lot more than a modern adaptation? It was made by very different people.
keep your home video copies of the original film safe before this new Disney decides to retouch it to make it "saferer and betterer".