I agree that one of its biggest problems is the lack of emotion in the animal’s faces for most of the film. Especially since they did a much better doing this with the Jungle Book remake that came out a few years before (apparently this one utilized motion capture while TLK didn’t). That, plus the lack of original material (we really could’ve used a few more new scenes) it pretty much is just a shot-for-shot remake.
That said, personally I still found more good than bad things to say about the movie. The visuals are gorgeous, I enjoyed the performance of most of the voice actors, and though many will disagree on this last one, I actually think the soundtrack is more or less on par with the original’s even if the musical numbers aren’t quite as expressive themselves. Plus, though this will only appeal to a few audience members, I really liked how, just like in The Jungle Book, plenty of lesser-known species from the region appear in the film like lesser bushbaby, banded mongoose, vulturine guineafowl, bat-eared fox, dik-dik etc.
