Mufasa: The Lion King

I was slightly trepidatious as I walked into the theatre. The Lion King (1994) is an all-time classic Disney masterpiece and personal favorite and I never like it when people tinker around with my things. The dreaded “put a new spin on an old favorite” line, "not because we had anything new to add to the story, but because we didn’t," is an ever-present fear.

Fortunately, Mufasa: The Lion King (2024) adds depth to his character's background. Structurally, there are some issues and song-wise it’ll never hold a candle to the original original, but there’s a beautiful and intriguing story hiding just underneath.

Framed with Rafiki (John Kani) telling a story to Simba (Donald Glover) and Nala’s (Beyoncé) daughter Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter), "Mufasa" finds the titular cub (Braelyn Rankins) orphaned and alone before a fateful meeting with another young lion, Taka (Theo Somolu). Despite their determination to be brothers, Mufasa’s arrival threatens Taka as heir to his pride and sets the stage for The Lion King (2019).

Now, despite running nearly two hours long, Mufasa feels frustratingly short. The narrative framing device with Rafiki’s story is to blame here. It makes sense the story framing was done this way; there are quite a few new characters and the filmmakers likely wanted to surround audiences with some sense of familiarity. Not to mention banking on some comedic relief from Timon (Billy Eichner) and Pumbaa (Seth Rogen) as featured in the 2019 remake was an understandable call (if for no other reason than ticket sales).

But it isn't necessary so much as distracting. Because we keep cutting back to Kiara and Rafiki (and Timon and Pumbaa), the tension in our main storyline constantly gets dropped, forcing us to watch Mufasa in short episodes instead of one continuous emotional journey. I wish Director Barry Jenkins had more confidence in Mufasa as a stand-alone feature instead of Mufasa: The Lion King.

Because the thing is, there’s a really good story there. Taka’s (as an adult voiced by Kelvin Harrison Jr.) love and admiration of his adoptive brother Mufasa (Aaron Pierre) morphs into jealousy as they grow up. It just cracks the surface, looking at how we can let envy twist into hate. All the while we have a chance to turn back, a chance for redemption, but we let it fester and rot until it consumes us. And if the filmmakers had just trusted that very familiar, very human, experience, we could have had a much stronger narrative.

That being said, the songs don’t really help. Ironically, the best moments are when the old, familiar music shines through. As stated, there really is a good story here; it’s just much better served by the original songs. There’s this wonderful paradox with the old Disney canon where, even though the movies are made for children, the music itself isn’t childish.

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There’s this wonderful paradox with the old Disney canon where, even though the movies are made for children, the music itself isn’t childish.

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And unfortunately, that’s just not the case with this soundtrack. I’m no Lin-Manuel Miranda hater (big Moana fan over here), but this was mostly a miss. The only song whose chorus I actually enjoyed is like most all the others in that they’re not even songs so much as musically narrating what the characters are doing. There’s also a strange affect on the word "brother" in one of the numbers that isn't apparent when the characters speak normally so I’m unsure of the direction given there. And the worst of it, villain Kiros’ (voiced and sung by Mads Mikkelsen) "Bye Bye" pales drastically in comparison to 1994's "Be Prepared." I shall never again speak that travesty of a villain song's name (when you see "Mufasa," you’ll get that reference).

To end on a positive note, "Mufasa: The Lion King" has some truly amazing special effects. The care the visual effects team put into crafting the characters and their environments is readily apparent. From the fur that moves with the wind to the expressions on the animals’ faces to the physics of their movement, it’s a sight to see how far the technology has come and how well it aids in the storytelling. I’m not in the camp that thinks it was foolish to make a live action (though not technically given the CGI) Lion King because lions don’t talk and why would you want to accentuate the difference between real life and animated lions. As long as it doesn’t detract from the story, I’ll likely be a fan. And here, the artists have found a solid balance between an intuitively human emotional expression and believable animal characteristics.

All in all, I didn’t find my ticket to be a waste. There are worse ways to spend six dollars (and unfortunately or not, there are better ways). But I’ll consider it a win walking out of the theater not resenting Disney for wreaking havoc on a story near and dear to my heart, but adding depth to it, even if we didn’t swim quite so deep as we could have (when you see it, you’ll get that, too).