Because it doesn't need a story.

There is still a non-verbal progression in the game however.

In the first level of world 3 you're welcomed to the sunny savannah where there seems to be a celebration going on. There's a catchy song playing and even the trees are jamming to it. Then in the next level there is a storm brewing in the savannah, the music changes to match the level, lightning is striking right in front of you and finally you enter a hurricane. In the next level you see the devastating results from the storm: the savannah is on fire, the music once again fits the atmosphere perfectly. You're no longer traversing a cheerful, sunny place, but hell on earth.

The same can be said about the fifth island. The snowmads have captured it to make popsicles from the fruit. You can see the fruit being harvested, cut into pieces and turned into juice to later be frozen. This culminates in a humorous cutscene right before you fight the boss. Mr. Polar Bear was simply lazing about, minding his own business while he enjoyed his popsicle when Donkey barged in and knocked it in the juicy pond where it's being eaten by piranhas.

The sixth and final word is one big homage to Donkey Kong Country: Returns. Every level represents one of the main areas of the previous game, but in a twisted frozen way. You can spot many familiar faces and structures in the background, but it's up to the player to find out about all that. They're not forcing an average story upon you like 95% of the game industry does. They're not desperatly trying to turn their games into Hollywood movies. Retro Studios is better than that. It's up to the player to notice all these subtle non-verbal ways of story telling.

That said, I wouldn't have minded more cutscenes like in the beginning of the game, but keep them non-verbal and make them epic and/or humorous.

With all due respect, what you described as storytelling would amount to a razzie award in the film industry. There is some minimal plot progress, sure, but it doesn't even compare to anything by Pixar or pretty much any animated film of the past 20 years that I can think of.

Games aren't movies. Look at Disney's games, most of them suck. What Pixar IP turned out to be a good game?

What works in a movie doesn't necesarrily work in a game and vice versa. Feel free to tell me one cartoony platformer that has a great story.

Braid is pretty good - certainly better than DKC. Whether the same methods that work in movies work in games isn't my issue - my issue is that we're lowering standards for storytelling in games compared to other media like movies. Perhaps games need to create better delivery methods for their stories, but I'm not going to hold them to a poor standard just because they currently suck as storytelling vehicles. 

Yeah, no.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc26EKhZNyM

Another pretentious indie game.

People like to throw the word pretenious around at anything that attempts to convey knowledge or insight nowadays. I guess college textboks are now pretentious too?  I think peeoples ego's just want to avoid having to acknlowedge the intellectual rift between them and of others, whether they be great artists or scientists. The fact is Braid had a better story than DKC - how you can even argue otherwise is beyond me.

With all due respect, what you described as storytelling would amount to a razzie award in the film industry. There is some minimal plot progress, sure, but it doesn't even compare to anything by Pixar or pretty much any animated film of the past 20 years that I can think of.

Not just DKCR, it got a lower metacritic than New Super Mario Bros U.