Big mouth: ‘Mufasa’ delivers the backstory of the Lion King’s father.
MUFASA: THE LION KING **1/2 (118 minutes) PG
There’s too little story and way too many songs in Mufasa, the eagerly awaited follow-up to the hit 2019 remake of the classic 1994 original Lion King.
Still, it rings enough bells to please the sprawling, multi-generational army of Lion King fans and ensure that Disney’s noble quest for reputational recovery continues – something many life-long lovers of Walt have been ardently praying for.
Though we see Lion King hero Simba as an adult, the film is a flashback piece as Rafiki, the wise old monkey, relates the origin story of Simba’s father Mufasa to Kiara, Simba’s daughter.
The narrative is pretty thin, essentially telling of how Mufasa was separated from his admittedly negligent parents during a flood event and joined another pride of lions, the head of which is resentful and suspicious of the new addition to the group.
They hurriedly trek across the attractive African landscape to a bountiful new land, all the while being pursued by a group of aggressive white lions who want to assert leadership over the dusty domain.
Pretty as heck to behold, the pacing is continually interrupted by lengthy, largely unnecessary musical numbers that add little to the film aside from length.
The songs come from Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda who, lauded though he is, shows how the gift of prolificacy (Mary Poppins Returns; In The Heights; The Little Mermaid; Encanto; Moana) carries with it the risk of prolixity. The songs are mostly forgettable, the sequences unremarkable.
Regarding length, it’s worth noting how the original 1994 film ran a lean 88 minutes, proving that brevity is no impediment to longevity or, indeed, success. At the time the OG Lion King took an Earth-shaking $988 million. In adjusted dollars, that’s a tad more than $2 billion. Not bad.
It was also traditionally drawn, coming out just before the advent of Toy Story, responsible for igniting the era of digital animation.
Speaking of which, it need be said how the state-of-the-craft digital animation in Mufasa is, for all its detail, can leave you a little cold. It often feels that the high level of photo-realism actually works against the point of animation, the best of which uses elasticity and exaggeration to build character.
Whereas the traditionally drawn figures in the original Lion King were warm, funny and joyfully strayed beyond the bounds of scientific accuracy, the rendering in Mufasa feels so obsessed with photo-realism that, even though they’re animals that talk, the mouth movements and facial expressions are limited to what a real creature would be capable of. It’s a restriction that is especially awkward when the critters belt out a song.
OK, the target audience isn’t going to care about such a quibble but there you have it. Pedantic point made.
After delivering smash hits with Inside Out 2 and Moana 2, Mufasa, thin and drawn out as it is, clocks in as Disney’s latest sure-footed crowd-pleaser as the studio cautiously reclaims the love it lost after all those failed attempts to make woke cool.
The only hurdle on the horizon is the radically adjusted Snow White, yet we pray against all the negativity (inadvertently initiated by lead actress Rachel Zegler) for that to also be good.
Mufasa opens with a dedication to the late James Earl Jones, who voiced Mufasa until is recent passing on 9 September, age 93. A lovely way to start a movie.