WesternAnimation Just another bad Disney sequel
Where The Lion King was basically Hamlet with lions, The Lion King 2 is basically Romeo and Juliet with lions. The Lion King rewrote Hamlet so not everyone died and that was mostly okay, but when the sequel tries it, it falls flat on its face. Romeo and Juliet revolves around the warring families realizing the pain and destruction their feuding has caused through the deaths of Romeo and Juliet and becoming better people because of it, but when you change it so that both lovers live, the story loses all impact.
On top of all that, the central conflict is between the Pridelanders and the Outlanders, which comes out of nowhere and is quite literally resolved when everyone realized it was stupid. Kiara and Kovu are boring, Simba's a racist, Rafiki needs a hobby, Timon, Pumbaa, and Nuka are insufferable, and Nala barely showed up. The only source of entertainment in the entire movie is Zira, whose voice actress took a leaf out of Jeremy Iron's book and had the time of her life with the role.
WesternAnimation Actually fares better than most DTV Disney sequels
I don't care what anybody else thinks. While it's true that a lot of Disney sequels, DTV or theatrical, have a really bad rep for lacking everything that made their timeless predecessors so great (save for "The Rescuers Down Under", of course), "The Lion King II: Simba's Pride" surprisingly has a lot going for it which I think makes it a fairly worthy successor to the original Lion King movie.
First off, while the original movie was loosely based off Shakespeare's "Hamlet", this sequel kinda continues the tradition with a "Romeo and Juliet"-style storyline which involves Simba's daughter Kiara and Scar's completely unrelated successor Kovu in a romance which is forbidden because Simba banished the lions who were loyal to Scar during his rein over the Pridelands. Kovu's mother Zira, who was Scar's most loyal follower, wants to train Kovu to usurp Simba so he can take his place as King. Fortunately, that doesn't come to pass as Kovu and Kiara start developing feelings for each other, and Kiara realizes that Kovu isn't necessarily a bad guy at heart as Zira had just taught him to be, and all the while, Kiara really wants her father to reconsider.
Secondly, I'd like to point out the big pros which really make this sequel worth watching:
Thirdly, this movie still does have its fair share of cons:
With all that in mind, of course, I don't see how anybody could give this sequel a lot of flack. Despite its flaws, I think it is definitely worth a watch.