Prequels to iconic properties have nudged their fanbases in the ribs by providing origins for iconic vehicles or articles of clothing, and in Mufasa: The Lion King, viewers will get backstories for a scar, a stick, and a rather phallic rock.
Is Mufasa a cut above other CG-animated reworkings of Disney classics? Without a doubt, if only because it gets to tell an original-ish story rather than remake an animated film that everyone already knows by heart. Is making a prequel to a remake the best use of time for director Barry Jenkins, the modern master behind Moonlight, Medicine for Melancholy, and If Beale Street Could Talk? That’s a trickier question.
Jenkins certainly deserves a big-studio paycheck after his time in the indie trenches, but where’s the studio backing his big, pricey, go-for-broke passion project? If Damien Chazelle got to hop from La La Land to Babylon, and the Oscar for Argo gave Ben Affleck carte blanche to make his period-piece gangster saga Live by Night, where are the deep pockets for Jenkins? (And his ambitious, scorching adaptation of The Underground Railroad doesn’t seem to count: it was a TV project.)
The filmmaker can’t be accused of phoning it in; he’s framed this tale of animals forming community and defending territory with grace and grandeur, and the teams of VFX artists have made those animals both lifelike in their stature and facially expressive. But there’s nothing about Mufasa that reflects, or demands, the craft of a director of Jenkins’ caliber. He’s made Mufasa a better film than it has any right to be, no question, but — to bring up an issue that arose when Joaquin Phoenix flaked on Todd Haynes’ latest project — is this any way to spend two years of an artist’s prime period?
The film is framed as a story told by baboon Rafiki (voiced by John Kani) to entertain young Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter) while the cub’s parents are in the veldt equivalent of a maternity ward (Donald Glover and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter return for brief cameos as Simba and Nala). We meet young Mufasa (Braelyn Rankins) in the care of a loving mother and father, who tell him of the paradise that lies beyond the light of the rising sun. But this idyll can’t last because a) it’s a Disney movie, so our protagonist can’t have parents for long, and b) it’s a Lion King movie, so a new generation of moviegoers will be as traumatized by Mufasa’s separation from mom and dad as the parents and grandparents of these young viewers were by Mufasa’s death in the 1994 original.
Swept away by a flood, Mufasa finds himself far from home, rescued by young prince Taka (Theo Somolu). Xenophobic king Obasi (Lennie James) dismisses Mufasa as a “stray” who should be eaten, but after Mufasa beats Taka in a footrace, he is allowed to stay with the pride, being raised by Taka’s kindly mother Eshe (Thandiwe Newton). She teaches Mufasa the ways of the huntress while the male lions loll about in the shade. Years later, the pride is under attack by white lions under the rule of the vicious Kiros (Mads Mikkelsen), and Obasi sends the grown-up Mufasa (Aaron Pierre) and Taka (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.) away to preserve the last of the royal bloodline.
As the two brothers flee Kiros, they collect a somewhat ramshackle group of travelers, including lion princess Sarabi (Tiffany Boone) and her flying scout Zazu (Preston Nyman), not to mention young Rafiki (Kagiso Lediga), cast out of his tribe, who fear his visions of the future. Together, they will establish order in the Pride Lands and unite the animals there against the onslaught of Kiros.
Kiros, it should be noted, enters into the pantheon of Villains Who Have a Point, Actually, with his big number, one of the best of the pleasant-if-not-immediately-memorable new compositions by Lin-Manuel Miranda. He notes that the whole “circle of life” business is a pipedream in a world of predators and prey. While young children should absolutely be taught that there is power in forming community with people who seem different, using the animal kingdom as a metaphor for that message ignores the very real pecking order of who’s eating and who gets eaten. (After the 1994 The Lion King, the idea carried over into films like Zootopia and The Wild Robot.) It’s an admirable message, awkwardly handled.
While Mufasa never makes the idealized leap of a sequel — creating tension and suspense to a story whose ending we already know — the screenplay by Jeff Nathanson (Young Woman and the Sea) does at least flesh out the idea of the title character as a people’s warrior, a commoner who ascends the throne. (The film does pivot from “we’re all in this together” to “long live the king” on a dime, but then so do many nations.) The voice cast brings specificity and distinction to each character, and the animation team honors their work in the granular details of the characters’ facial and body movements. Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner, returning as Pumbaa and Timon, get saddled with a few too many Disney-insider metajokes, but even they commit to the bit.
Mufasa: The Lion King stands as a piece of corporate product that occasionally reflects the loving hands of the artist who made it, which is more than can be said for most corporate product. The artist nonetheless deserves better.
Director: Barry Jacobson
Screenwriters: Jeff Nathanson; based on characters created by Irene Mecchi and Jonathan Roberts and Linda Woolverton
Cast: Aaron Pierre, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Tiffany Boone, Kagiso Lediga, Preston Nyman, Blue Ivy Carter, John Kani, Mads Mikkelsen, Seth Rogen, Billy Eichner, Thandiwe Newton, Lennie James, Anika Noni Rose, Keith David
Executive producer: Peter Tobyansen
Producers: Adele Romanski, Mark Ceryak
Director of photography: James Laxton
Production design: Mark Friedberg
Editing: Joi McMillon
Music: Dave Metzger, score; Lin-Manuel Miranda, original songs; Lebo M, additional music and vocal performances
Sound design: Onnalee Blank, supervising sound editor
Production companies: Walt Disney Studios
In English
120 minutes