Five years have passed since Jon Favreau tried his hand at photorealistically reinventing The Lion King (1994). While the film was a massive financial success, its legacy lives in a divisive shadow. The list of common criticisms is miles long: little to no narrative variation from the original film, a lack of emotion from the characters in favor of its lifelike style, subpar vocal performances, and an inherent dependency on reminding us of its vastly superior predecessor.
Some love it, some hate it. Me, personally? I think it’s one of the worst movies of the 2010s and a soulless touchstone for the shell of a company Disney has become over the past decade.
Despite my grievances with the original remake, I didn’t throw my hands up and shout that all hope was lost with its prequel Mufasa: The Lion King (2024). Any shred of optimism I clung to rested entirely on the shoulders of its director Barry Jenkins. As a beloved, Oscar-winning tentpole of the independent film scene (Moonlight (2016), If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)), Jenkins’ vibrant vision and empathetic tendencies as a filmmaker left me hopeful for a salvageable prequel. Unfortunately, one thing to take away from Mufasa is that a director of any caliber can only do so much when outweighed by the problems of an inherently flawed script.
Mufasa is set not long after the events of The Lion King (2019), as Simba (Donald Glover) and Nala (Beyoncé Knowles-Carter) are expecting the birth of their second cub and leave the Pridelands to an oasis for Nala to give birth. Entrusting Timon (Billy Eichner) and Pumbaa (Seth Rogen) to watch over their firstborn Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter), Rafiki (John Kani) visits to share the story of how her grandfather Mufasa became king of the Pridelands.
The setup works well enough as an overarching narrative for the story. In reality, it comes across simply as justification for including the original remake’s celebrity cast. Glover and Knowles-Carter each have about five lines and are saved for the end of the film – anyone going into the film as a fan of the pair should expect disappointment.
The same goes for Eichner and Rogan, whose improvised banter in the original remake was one of the only acceptable substitutions. In Mufasa, their humor only comes to hijack the story and riff mindlessly before jumping back into Rafiki’s story. Before, they sporadically registered light chuckles. Here, they’re insufferable.
The majority of the story centers around Rafiki’s recounting of Mufasa’s youth (Braelyn Rankins) living with a small family of lions, including his parents Masego (Anika Noni Rose) and Afia (Keith David). When a great flood sweeps Mufasa to a faraway land, he finds himself stranded and in peril, until a royal cub named Taka (Theo Somolu) saves him. While Taka’s mother Queen Eshe (Thandiwe Newton) welcomes Mufasa into their family, his father King Obasi (Lennie James) isn’t accepting of outsiders.
Once Mufasa proves his worth, he and Taka grow into young adults (Aaron Pierre and Kelvin Harrison Jr., respectively) as brothers in spirit. After a group of white lions attack Mufasa and Eshe and the son of the white lions’ formidable leader Kiros (Mads Mikkelsen) is killed in the process, the pride is in danger. Hearing word of this, Mufasa and Taka are told to escape, later coming across Sarabi (Tiffany Boone), her hornbill friend Zazu (Preston Nyman), and a young Rafiki (Kagiso Lediga), who claims he will lead them all to their new home.
Despite the many moving pieces in Mufasa’s origin story, the first two-thirds are surprisingly well-handled. As complicated as the story sounds, the pacing allows the development of its many characters enough breathing room to act as a natural progression of Mufasa’s establishment into his new family. To screenwriter Jeff Nathanson’s credit I found myself thoroughly engaged with where the story was headed throughout much of the main plot.
It isn’t until the last third of the film, where a very rushed motivation for Taka forces him into becoming a villain, that Mufasa loses all its good faith. Without delving into spoilers, Taka’s decision to turn on Mufasa comes without the buildup necessary to justify a drastic choice. Taka’s frustration with Mufasa superseding his nobility is rarely at the forefront of the conversation, even with an entire song devoted to his displeasure (“Brother Betrayed”).
The direction for Taka’s betrayal sets the film up for a contrived final act and resolution largely spent answering questions no one asked. If you’ve spent many nights tossing and turning wanting to know how Pride Rock got its shape or how Mufasa’s family dynamics came to be, you might be satisfied with where this film heads. However, as someone much more interested in the initial setup than the film’s fanfiction outcome, I was heavily let down.
That’s not to say that Mufasa: The Lion King is a total waste of resources. Much of the film’s visual style is vastly improved by Jenkins. Instead of a boring, static shot composition, the camerawork is free-flowing and brimming with personality. Some shots are a little too ambitious for their own good and clash with the photorealistic style, but on the whole, it’s a vast improvement over the original.
The same can be said for the music. Instead of relying on half-hearted renditions of the masterful Hans Zimmer orchestration and Elton John and Tim Rice’s original songs, Mufasa features seven original songs, many written by Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. None match the impact of the 1994 original, but they stand on their own as certified toe-tappers that organically move the story forward.
“I Always Wanted a Brother” is the obvious standout with its carefree sensibilities and upbeat tempo, not far off from what “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” accomplished in the original film. The same can be said for Dave Metzger’s score, which captures the general atmosphere of Zimmer’s orchestration without feeling like a pale imitation.
Also, if there’s one thing Mufasa: The Lion King improved from the 2019 remake, it’s the production’s ability to accept criticism and improve the characters’ facial expressiveness. The biggest detriment to the original remake was trying to empathize with characters who couldn’t emote how they were feeling. In a remake of one of the most expressively animated movies ever made, that’s a glaring flaw, and I’m glad there was some attempt at reconciliation.
However, even these improvements over The Lion King (2019) aren’t enough to fix the obvious issues with the film’s script, with its haphazard structure and attempts at humor and having to carry over the remake’s photorealistic style to tell it.
Jenkins’ efforts at presenting more dynamics can only go so far in bringing a severely flawed story to life. While it was an admirable attempt, the end result has too many flaws to recommend. Regardless of the outcome, I look forward to seeing what project Jenkins’ Mufasa paycheck will fund next.
Review Courtesy of Landon Defever
Feature Image Credit to Disney via Entertainment Weekly