This weekend will see the release of the new computer-animated feature film Mufasa: The Lion King, which serves as both a sequel and a prequel to Disney’s 2019 remake of the beloved 1994 hand-drawn animated classic The Lion King. Laughing Place was invited to attend an advance screening of the movie, and below are my mostly spoiler-free thoughts.
Five and a half years ago I was impressed by director Jon Favreau’s The Lion King as an experimental film, and the technological advancements made on that project and on Favreau’s Jungle Book remake undeniably paved the way for what he was able to achieve in creating The Mandalorian for Lucasfilm later that same year. As a big bonus for The Walt Disney Company, The Lion King remake also drew in bucketloads of money (it is currently considered the second-highest-grossing animated film of all time– please don’t call it live-action), which made an eventual follow-up pretty much inevitable. Half a decade later, filmmaker Barry Jenkins (of 2016’s Best Picture winner Moonlight) has stepped into Favreau’s shoes to helm Mufasa: The Lion King, which kicks off with an adult Simba (voiced once again by Community’s Donald Glover) heading out into the wilderness to help his mate Nala (superstar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter) give birth to a second child. Meanwhile, his first-born daughter Kiara (newcomer Blue Ivy Carter, who has a couple of very famous parents) is left in the care of the meerkat Timon (Bros’ Billy Eichner), warthog Pumbaa (This Is the End’s Seth Rogen), and the mandrill mystic Rafiki (John Kani, best known as T’Chaka in Black Panther, another cat-focused franchise).
Timon and Pumbaa serve as the audience surrogates (and welcome comic relief, delivering some funny meta-observations about The Lion King universe) as Rafiki weaves the tale of Kiara’s grandfather Mufasa (voiced in flashback by Braelyn Rankins from Doom Patrol and later, as the character ages to near-adulthood, Aaron Pierre from The Underground Railroad– don’t worry, James Earl Jones gets a respectful “in memoriam” at the top here) and how he became king of the Pride Lands. The bulk of the remainder of the film follows young Mufasa as he is accidentally separated from his birth parents and comes to be an adopted brother of Taka, who we know will grow up to be… well, you can probably figure that out, even if Pumbaa can’t. After a villainous white lion named Kiros (a typecast Mads Mikkelsen from Hannibal and Doctor Strange) threatens to oust Taka’s family from its homeland, the two brothers set out on what is for a little while a fun Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid pastiche, roaming through the savanna in search of a mythical new haven for their pride. Along the way they begin to pick up other stragglers and outcasts like Rafiki (the younger version of which is voiced by Kagiso Lediga from Catching Feelings) the female lion Sarabi (Hunters’ Tiffany Boone), and the somewhat snooty, pompous hornbill Zazu (A Small Light’s Preston Nyman, replacing comedian John Oliver, who does not return– even as an older version of the character).
That’s about all I want to reveal about the actual plot in this review– suffice it to say that the narrative become almost a Wizard of Oz-type road movie with a thematic emphasis on found family over blood, and that while Mufasa and Taka start out loving each other fairly unconditionally, we all know where this story is going. Like The Lion King before it, Mufasa the movie is a Shakespearean-inspired tragedy. Though there are characters that have happy endings, the focus is equally set upon other characters who do not. For that reason, the film may be a little dark for very young viewers, but there isn’t anything here that feels tonally out of place compared to previous entries in the franchise. One notable change from 2019’s The Lion King is that Jenkins and his creative team have chosen to give the characters far more expressive faces (read: the lions can smile now), in contrast to Favreau’s commitment to near-photo-realism when it came to his animated leads. That particular adjustment to viewer feedback actually took me out of the “reality” of this world a little bit, and believe it or not I think I ultimately preferred it the other way around.
The other thing we need to talk about is the music– while the mostly unremarkable score is composed by Wish’s Dave Metzger, the songs are written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who has become a big part of the Disney family since his earth-shattering success with Broadway’s Hamilton. He starred in 2018’s Mary Poppins Returns and provided tracks for Moana, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Little Mermaid live-action remake, and Encanto. I remember walking out of a press screening for that last one knowing that audiences would be singing those tunes for years to come, and I was quickly proven right. I didn’t leave Mufasa: The Lion King with that same feeling, but I think that’s because it comes across as though Miranda was left hamstrung by having to replicate the success of what came before. I mean, there are reasonable facsimiles of “The Circle of Life” (“Ngomso”), “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” (“I Always Wanted a Brother”), and “Be Prepared” (“Bye Bye”), plus a brief reprise of “Hakuna Matata” with an amusing twist. The ditties in the back half of the film are an improvement– probably because Lin was permitted to spread his musical wings a bit more– with “We Go Together” probably being my favorite, though Taka’s third-act solo is emotionally powerful as well.
I would say the other major flaw of Mufasa is that it undeniably suffers from a bad bout of prequelitis, wherein it feels the need to explain or provide an origin to things that previously worked fine just existing (Have you spent the past 30 years wondering how Pride Rock was formed, geologically speaking? I haven’t.) But on the whole I’d say this movie will function as a pleasantly diverting family outing for the holiday season, as seems to be the intent. It’s a tale of brotherly love-turned-rivalry that has enough drama and laughs to fill its slightly overlong two-hour runtime, and heck, the visuals still look beautiful as all get-out, even if I’ll never get used to seeing a lion smile.
Mufasa: The Lion King opens in theaters nationwide this Friday, December 20th.
My grade: 3 out of 5 delicious crickets.