Film Review: Mufasa: The Lion King

Mufasa: The Lion King
Director: Barry Jenkins
Walt Disney Pictures
In Theaters: 12.20

It’s been a big year for Disney, bouncing back from last years string of box office bombs with some of their biggest hits in recent memory, ranging from an adorable Pixar sequel to an R-rated Marvel movie. It seems that the House of Mouse has the golden touch once again, but there’s one more big event left. Mufasa: The Lion King, the prequel to the 2019 CGI-do-not-call-it-live-action remake of the the 1994 animated classic, is Disney’s mane event for the holiday season.  

The film begins with Simba (Donald Glover, Solo: A Star Wars story, Atlanta) and Nala (recording superstar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter) asking Timon the meerkat (Billy Eichner, Bros)  and Pumba the warthog (Seth Rogen, Pineapple Express, The Fabelmans), as well as the mandrill Rafiki (John Kani, Black Panther) to watch of their cub, Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter) while they go off to take care of some important business. To pass the time, Rafiki tells Kiara the story of her grandfather. The story begins with Mufasa as a lonely orphaned cub, wandering aimlessly until he meets Taka, a lion from a royal bloodline. When they are grown, the lives of Mufasa (Aaron Pierre, The Underground Railroad, Foe) and Taka (Kelvin Harrison, Jr, Chevalier) take a dramatic turn when a pride of white lions attacks. Known as The Outsiders, they are led by the fierce Kiros (Mads Mikkelson, Casino Royale, Another Round). In the ensuing battle, Mufasa kills Kiros’ son while defending the pride. In order protect the royal bloodline, Obasi, king of the pride and Taka’s father, orders Mufasa and Taka to flee together. Together, these self-proclaimed brothers embark on a perilous journey, meeting a young Rafiki (Kagiso Lediga, Bunny Chow) and a lioness named Sarabi (Tiffany Boone, The Midnight Sky) and setting off in search of Milele, a utopian land where they hope to find safety and build a new kingdom. 

The 2019 version of The Lion King was a dazzling display of photorealistic effects wizardry, but it was completely redundant and lacking the lovable charm of the original. While Mufasa earns some goodwill by giving us a story that we haven’t seen before, it’s hardly the elegant legend laced with Shakespearen overtones that the original gave us. It’s a convoluted, and at times rather confusing, dark drama that tells a gloomy villain origin story, while frequently cutting away to Timon and Pumba making meta jokes about Disney. The awkward narrative made me think of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and the interludes of intentionally hokey comedy onboard the space station. 

Director Barry Jenkins (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk) is known for heavy drama, and those are the sequences where he’s most at home here. It often feels like Jenkins and Disney are on different pages as to what kind of movie they wanted to make, which may account for why the songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame seem so awkward and tentative much of the time. Miranda seems out of his depth, unsure whether he’s supposed to imitate Elton John or create something distinctly new, and he’s drowning much of the time. The songs range from the workable if forgettable romantic duet Tell Me It’s You, sung by Mufasa and Sarabi, to the embarrassingly dreadful villain theme, Bye Bye, and they rarely capture even a glimmer of the charm, creativity and energy we expect from the brilliant, award winning composer. As weak as the Moana 2 songs were without Miranda, Mufasa gives us even worse ones right from the source. As an admirer of Miranda’s work, I hope his next project is far less ill conceived and more well suited to his incredible talents. 

Pierre and Harrison are powerhouse actors with great voices, and Harrison even has experience trying to elevate weak songs in Cyrano (which made these limp and lifeless tunes sound like magnificent showstoppers by comparison). They bring as much nuance as they can to these character voices, though the problem we saw in the left film still stands: these lifelike lions can’t convey nearly as much range of emotions as their more humanized hand drawn counterparts. Mikkelson can play an imposing villain in his sleep, and seems to be doing so here, and Lediga is wonderful as the young Rafiki. In fact, the Mufasa-Rafiki backstory in better than the one at the center of the film. Eichner and Rogen wear out their welcome fast, simply doing tired schtick and Disney advertisements, and while I’ve been a Timon and Pumba fan since day one, I frankly found myself wishing that they weren’t in this movie at all. 

It may sound like I hated Mufasa: The Lion King, yet that’s hardly the case. It has a lot of good performances and strong events, and stalwart fans of this tale—including me—will likely find that enough of it works to make it worth seeing, though likely not multiple times. The movie is too intense for very young children, though ages 8 and above should be engrossed by it. I’m not willing to dismiss it completely, because there’s some wonderful elements here, yet there’s too much that just doesn’t work to give it an enthusiastic endorsement. In the great circle of life, Mufasa is a frustratingly dizzying experience. –Patrick Gibbs 

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