The Lion King Review: 3 Ups & 7 Downs

4. The Characters Lack Expressiveness & Emotion

In conjunction with the bizarrely flat performances, the actual designs of the movie's characters are themselves an issue.

In an attempt to create the most impressively realistic digital animals possible, Favreau has traded the ability for the characters to emote expressively, as is a vital aspect of the character designs in the animation.

The heightened style of the original allowed the actors to emote and add dimension to their characters, but here the animals never really show sufficient fear, anger or sadness.

It emphasises the feeling that we're basically watching a Planet Earth-type documentary with celebrity voiceovers, because as fantastic as the CGI absolutely is throughout, a slightly less-realistic approach would surely have allowed the characters to feel a little less cold and detached than they ultimately do.