MUFASA: THE LION KING REVIEW

“Mufasa looks absolutely glorious with a soundtrack to match, which helps it to overcome any story problems.”

We’ll start things off with the caveat that I only saw the 1994 animated The Lion King for the first time earlier this year when it got a 30th anniversary theatrical release, and only watched the 2019 Jon Favreau “live action” remake even more recently. I’ve never seen the Broadway musical, though clearly I know the songs, since there were many big hits. Either way, I went into this prequel assuming I wasn’t the target audience but still with high hopes that it might surpass any expectations.

To be honest, I wasn’t too enamored with Favreau’s Lion King when I watched it, so I wasn’t sure whether Moonlight’s Oscar-winning filmmaker Barry Jenkins could make such a huge leap into a studio franchise film with a far vaster budget and deliver something better. Turns out, he has, and no one is more surprised about that than me.

Even though this prequel starts sometime after the original movie with Simba and Nala (Donald Glover, Beyncé) having a daughter Kiara (voiced by Beyonce’s actual daughter Blue Ivy Carter), the mandrill Rafiki (John Kani) soonshows up to tell the story of Simba’s dead father Mufasa (Aaron Pierre) and his early dealings with his adopted brother and future nemesis Taka (Kelvin Harrison Jr.). Though Rafiki’s story, we learn that Mufasa was separated from his own parents, and ended up being taken in by Taka’s mother, the queen of their pride, though soon, another pride of white lions bear down on the family sending Mufasa and Taka on a journey to find safety.

The flashback story starts out feeling very much like the original The Lion King, in a similar way as Gladiator II harked back to the original, but things gets muddled up with so many different lion packs and kings with lion names that few will be able to keep track of. Most will realize that Taka is the younger Scar, and eventually, other familiar characters show up, but fortunately, this one gets to Mufasa and Taka as older lions more quickly, which was one of the issues I had with the original movie.

Jenkins is working from a screenplay by Jeff Nathanson, who is no slouch, not only having written the Lion King remake, but also a few movies directed by Spielberg, like Catch Me If You Can. It’s a screenplay that allows Jenkins to really go big on the evocative visuals, taking advantage of cutting edge visual effects to make photo-realistic environments and animals that look so real you might forget you’re watching CG animation whenever they’re not talking or singing. (Note: That I watched Mufasa in IMAX 3D, which certainly helped with the scope and the dimension of these visuals.)

The voice casting and performances are also much better with Mufasa, maybe because I felt like Glover was miscast as the adult Simba. Pierre and Harrison are great, as is Tiffany Boone as the voice of Sarabi, who brings along her guardian Zazu the bird, voiced by Preston Nyman, who was probably the weakest link among the voice cast. Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen are back as Timon and Simbaa, and they aren’t nearly as annoying while they’re interrupting Rafiki’s story, mainly because they aren’t farting and belching so much, even though that’s still the most distinct aspect of their personalities. I didn’t recognize the voices of Mads Mikkelsen or Thandiwe Newton, though presumably, he’s voicing the king of the white lions, since he’s definitely been typecast as a Disney villain.

The songs written by Lin-Manuel Miranda are pretty good, and they get better as it goes along, showing you that he has more experience with the musical genre than the writers who took over the songs for Moana 2. I couldn’t really name any of the individual songs, but my favorite ones were probably the one with the five travelers and the love song between Mufasa and Sarabi, as that love story is important to this prequel.

As with most prequels, you generally know where this one is going, because it eventually has to end up at the point where you first met the characters in the 1994 animated film. That means that the feelings of brotherhood between Mufasa and Taka will eventually fall apart, mostly happening since, as with most things, a girl is involved, in this case, Sarabi. But again, if you’ve seen either of the previous animated movies, you’ll generally know where things will end up.

Either way, Mufasa looks absolutely glorious with a soundtrack to match, which helps it to overcome any of its earlier story problems. I certainly was pleasantly surprised by what a great job Jenkins did with his move into big-budget studio movies, similar to Ryan Coogler before him. It will certainly be interesting to see what Jenkins decides to do next.

Rating: 7.5/10

Mufasa: The Lion King opens on December 20 with previews on Thursday night.