Cards on the table time: I am not particularly a fan of movie musicals, just in general, and I'm not particularly a fan of the Disney animated take on them.
There are exceptions, of course. Beauty and The Beast was fantastic, as was the late Robin Williams' performance in Aladdin; I enjoyed Idina Menzel's soaring solo in Frozen, and its subversion of the "true love's kiss" plot point; I enjoyed Moana, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and all; I even enjoyed Brave's plucky protagonist.
But I didn't love The Lion King; to me, it already felt formulaic, with obligatory comedians, expository musical numbers, and a plot that was supposed to be all about the reality of life on the African savanna, but built on outdated animal facts right out of a Wild Kingdom episode from decades ago. It didn't help that its catchiest musical number basically told kids that a life lived with no regard for responsibilities or consequences was the best life.
(By the way, young lions almost never grow up to lead the pride they were born into; they usurp the leadership of other prides, kill all the young lions of that pride to drive the lionesses into heat, and then mate with as many of them as possible to ensure that all of the pride's offspring from that point forward are their genetic descendants. And spotted hyenas are far more gregarious, and industrious, than The Lion King (or Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom) have told you.)
I didn't like Mulan, whose use of Eddie Murphy was such an obvious attempt to recapture the Robin Williams magic from Aladdin that it just came off as desperate. I didn't like Hercules, which was just a mess. And I didn't like Pocahontas or The Hunchback of Notre Dame, although nobody else seems to have cared for those films, either, so that's not saying much.
For years, it's been up to Pixar to keep the House of Mouse in the animation game. That was fine by me; Toy Story, The Incredibles, and Up were all fantastic. But none of them were musicals; exceptions like Frozen and Moana aside, Disney seemed more interested in creating live-action (or, in the Lion King's case, photorealistic CGI) versions of their animated classics, than in crafting new ones.
After watching Encanto, I can't help but feel like that might be a better path forward for them. Because in spite of its glowing reviews, Encanto misses the mark so completely that I can only assume that other critics are grading Lin Manuel Miranda on his own, very generous, curve.
