A One Mann’s Movies review of “Mufasa: The Lion King” (2024).
Regular readers will know my general distaste of Disney Live-Action remakes. Pointless, vapid affairs that often detract from the animated masterpieces they are trying to mimic. “Mufasa: The Lion King” is obviously based on (and is both a sequel and a prequel to) the 1994 classic and its 2019 live-action remake. However, at least it has a new story, charting the early life of Simba’s Dad, Mufasa, and his ‘brother’ who will become Scar.
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
“Mufasa: The Lion King” Plot Summary:
Mufasa is growing up with his parents in an arid inhospitable land being told dreams of a marvellous place called Milele. (Yes. Milele.) When tragedy separates Mufasa from his parents he finds himself lost and alone but is rescued by another young cub called Taka (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) But Taka’s pride is an unfriendly place for an outsider.
Certification:
UK: PG; US: PG. (From the BBFC web site: “Mild threat, violence”)
Talent:
Starring (the voices of): Aaron Pierre, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Lennie James, Anika Noni Rose, Keith David, Tiffany Boone, Kagiso Lediga, Preston Nyman, Blue Ivy Carter, John Kani, Mads Mikkelsen, Seth Rogen, Billy Eichner, Thandiwe Newton, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Donald Glover, Braelyn Rankins, Theo Somolu.
Directed by: Barry Jenkins.
Written by: Jeff Nathanson. (Based of characters created by Linda Woolverton, Irene Mecchi & Jonathan Roberts.)
Running Time: 2h 0m.
“Mufasa: The Lion King” Summary:
Positives:
- It looks terrific.
- There’s a lovely opening tribute to James Earl Jones (the most moving bit of the film for me!)
Negatives:
- The disjointed storyline, with flash backs between past and present, are just plain annoying.
- Timon and Pumbaa really don’t work.
- Some lacklustre LMM songs.
Review of “Mufasa: The Lion King”:
Poignant tribute.
The film starts with the sonorous voice of James Earl Jones filling the cinema: a moving tribute to the actor who died in September. I really appreciated that.
Beautiful animation… digital rendering… or whatever we are supposed to call it.
For all its faults, the film looks splendid with the digital realisation of all of the animals, and their expressions, expertly done. When I think of the computing power required to render all of those different animals simultaneously on screen in some of the shots, my mind genuinely boggles. A final shot of young Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter) looking down the lens is so wonderfully refined that it ramps the big-eyed-kitten-being-hyper-cute-on-the-interweb-ometer right up to 12.
Will somebody please maul Timon and Pumbah to death?
The story is really annoyingly disjointed. The story is trying hard to link the ‘near future’ – the birth of a new cub to Simba (Donald Glover) and Nala (Beyoncé Knowles-Carter) – to the prequel story of how Mufasa (Braelyn Rankins and then Aaron Pierre) originally came to power. But it is told through Rafiki (John Kani) narrating the story to young Kiara as Timon (Billy Eichner) and Pumbaa (Seth Rogen) witter on inanely with some sort of low-grade banter. The actual backstory of Mufasa and his relationship with Taka/Scar (Theo Somolu and then Kelvin Harrison Jr.) should be engaging. But in constantly being thrown back to hear some more jokes from the annoying twosome, it completely ruined the pacing of the story for me.
I’m not even sure who Timon and Pumbaa were there for. Their jokes are not kid-friendly and not adult-funny. At one point they break the fourth wall by talking about the stage show, which made me go “What? WTF?”! It rather smacks of Disney Exec interference: “oh, the public loved those guys and that song in the original film… they have GOT to be in this one”. I wanted to drown them both in the unfeasibly deep pool (that we’ve never seen before) beneath Pride Rock.
Desperately trying to tie a) to b).
Another annoyance is the dedication to the mission of dredging out every origin story in the original film, whether it easily fits into the story or not.
Some of these work well. I fully expected this to be the origin story of Scar, and we are not disappointed. On two occasions, Taka (Scar) saves Mufasa by sinking his claws into the back of his paws, an act of compassion that will be mirrored in a far more negative way many years later.
Others feel horribly shoehorned in, from Rafiki finding his stick to the creation of Pride Rock itself!!
Forgettable tunes.
I’m afraid, (in common with “Moana 2“), the songs in this offering didn’t resonate with me, which is surprising given that Lin Manuel Miranda is behind them. And whereas “Moana 2” had “Beyond” which I was humming to myself afterwards, there’s not a single stand-out song in this soundtrack that I could hum to you. None of them are truly terrible, and some of them are quite good – “We Go Together” being one. They are just not instantly memorable.
Thankfully many of Hans Zimmer’s magnificent Lion King themes are in there to pick up the slack, reworked by the composer Dave Metzger.
Parental Advisory.
Kevin Maher in an interview with Mads Mikkelsen in today’s Sunday Times described this film as “officially toddler-friendly”. I would humbly disagree. Whereas I was happy last week to take my 4 year old grandson Jack to watch “Moana 2” (also a PG… he just about survived the scary sea monsters) I would not want to take him to see this. Some of the violence, that you could probably get away with in an animated feature, becomes all too real and disturbing when rendered in photo-realistic graphics.
The ‘baddie-lions’ – it is surely no coincidence that Barry Jenkins (“Moonlight“, “If Beale Street Could Talk“) is the director and the villains are a whiter shade of pale?! – are fearsome. This is especially true of their leader, Kiros, voiced menacingly by Mads Mikkelsen. As one point there is a genocide of a whole pride of lions. It’s not seen on screen, but merely implied. But this won’t be lost on most kids.
I know every kid is different in this regard. But parents of nervous young people might want to pre-watch this (it will inevitably be on Disney+ soon) before Scar-ring (pun intended) their offspring too early.
Summary Thoughts on “Mufasa: The Lion King”
A Disney offering that has its moments but, for me, is fundamentally flawed. A case of trying too hard to tick off a checklist of ‘gotta include’s.
Where to Watch it (Powered by Justwatch)
Trailer for “Mufasa: The Lion King”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o17MF9vnabg.
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