‘Mufasa: The Lion King’ Review: If Lion Cubs Could Talk [D]

On December 5, 2024, film critic Matt Zoller Seitz published a profile feature for Vulture entitled “Moonlight in the Lion’s Den.” It traces filmmaker Barry Jenkins’ decision to pivot from his intimate, adult dramas like Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk to his next project for Disney: a multi-million dollar follow-up to 2019’s “live-action” (a sustained misnomer for a photo-realistically animated film) remake of The Lion King. Jenkins was refreshingly frank about his new project essentially being a for-hire gig—Disney would hold final cut and essentially just needed someone to facilitate production—but one that allowed him to explore new avenues of moviemaking that he had yet to be exposed to, expanding his repertoire by having access to tools used for methods of filmmaking only obtainable when you’re working for one of the world’s largest corporate empires.

And that’s exactly what Mufasa: The Lion King is: a corporate movie. I could sit here and try to justify how a director with as much heart and finesse as Jenkins injected his own voice into this project but the reality is that it’s just not true, nor does it seem to have been what Jenkins was trying to accomplish. This is another in a long line of feedback cycle-type brand exercises in which Disney looks towards the success of the past to pave the way to short-term gains in the present (2019’s The Lion King earned over a billion dollars at the box office). Jenkins was offered the opportunity to flex his filmmaking muscles in a way that helps effectively sustain an IP while likely cashing a hefty paycheck that could ostensibly fund future projects of a more personal vein. This is a classic “one for them.” 

However, according to Seitz’s article, Jenkins was convinced to take on the project once he actually read the script. Penned by scribe of the initial reboot entry Jeff Nathanson, Mufasa adopts a dual narrative approach as a simultaneous sequel and a prequel while taking small elements of the direct-to-video sequel to the original film, The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride, and refitting them into a new story. It sees the sage-like mandrill Rafiki (John Kani) narrating the origin of Mufasa (voice in childhood by Braelyn Rankins, in adulthood by Aaron Pierre) to his grand-cub, Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter), daughter to current Pride Rock king Simba (Donald Glover) and Nala (Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, granted precisely one scene). It’s flashback structure is kind of like if The Godfather Part II featured a bunch of lifelike, singing CGI animals. 

Mufasa’s upbringing follows the familiar motifs of a Lion King story: unforeseen adventure, acceptance within a found family, and covert betrayals surrounded by melodramatic tragedy (don’t forget, the original film was inspired by Shakespeare’s Hamlet). Essentially, what you’re getting is the process by which Mufasa came to develop lifelong tensions with his adoptive brother Scar (in his youth known as Taka, voiced by Theo Somolu as a cub and Kelvin Harrison Jr. as an adult), as well as his meeting with familiar faces like Rafiki, lioness Sarabi (Tiffany Boone), and hornbill Zazu (Preston Nyman). Under threat by a pride of white lions led by the intimidating Kiros (Mads Mikkelsen), our group roams the planes in search of a mythical promised land destined to become their familiar home of Pride Rock. 

A good helping of voice cast members from the 2019 film return, but they’re largely sidelined for the new cast. The two holdovers that retain the largest presence are Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner as Pumbaa and Timon, who we frequently return to as the narrative stops down to allow them to banter back and forth with lousy humor that constantly rips the film out of the sense of immersion it’s ostensibly committed to with its visual sense. A brief a cappella moment with re-written lyrics to Hakuna Matata leads to a joke about how they’re going to get in trouble with legal; there’s a random bit about a perfume line called “Pumbaa by Pumbaa;” Timon “contains multitudes.” It would be nice if a movie like this could at least stick to a consistent sense of genuine engagement with its own world—instead, this goes for cheap gags based on anachronisms. 

Not that the film’s visuals offer the type of absorption that Disney allegedly aspires to, anyway. As was true with its predecessor, the realistic animal animations of Mufasa are impressive technical achievements but underwhelming vessels for conveying story or emotion—an unfortunate complication for a film from one of our most soulful contemporary directors. They retain the same problem of uncanny dead-eyed non-expressiveness, the whole of their emotion dependent on voice-acting that itself feels disconnected from the world the performers are meant to inhabit. The dialogue is stiff and awkwardly staged, with rhythmic patterns that make the characters’ reactions feel unnatural, constantly reacting a half-beat too quickly to one another. This sounds like a small problem but it compounds: everything on screen feels not only fake but lifeless, exacerbated by unconvincing vocal delivery.

The story is additionally propelled along by a smattering of songs written by Lin-Manuel Miranda that range from generically catchy pop (“I Always Wanted A Brother”) to the more dramatic ballads (“Brother Betrayed”) you would expect—none of which hold a candle to any of the music from the 1994 film. The original soundtrack by Elton John and Tim Rice isn’t particularly easy to top but you get the sense that Mufasa recognizes that fact and stops short of even beginning to try. It’s hard to imagine any of these songs persisting in the greater scheme of this franchise’s legacy, though it is morbidly funny to hear the likes of Mikkelsen singing in the occasionally grating cadence of a Miranda-penned tune, as in his unremarkable villain anthem “Bye Bye.” 

But that echoes the overarching issue with Mufasa: it doesn’t want to try. It’s not interested in developing anything inventive or new, just what’s broadly accessible and easily digestible. It sticks to the familiar franchise origin story template because it knows that formula works, and it’s too risk-averse to try anything that might undermine it. Curious about how Rafiki got his staff? Mufasa has your answer. There’s a brief attempt toward the end to draw conspicuous real-world political parallels as it pertains to volatile strongmen attempting to divide the oppressed against a common enemy, but it’s strained and overshadowed. It doesn’t play in a movie so clearly part of a much larger scheme of inauspicious corporate strategizing and synergizing—a focus-grouped-to-hell product designed as palatable family-friendly fodder for Christmastime, doubling as a pricey animation demo suited for motion-smoothed tech displays in Best Buy.

But even trying to look at the film’s sense of artistry in good faith, it’s clear that the fundamental failing of these new Lion King films is that they seem to believe that the hand-drawn animation of the original film was a fleeting, incidental factor in its enduring appeal. In reality, aside from now-classic musical numbers that are hard to replicate, it’s the main reason The Lion King remains a cornerstone of Disney’s classic animation era. The colorful, evocative illustrative style, with its stunning landscapes and expressive character designs, is intimately tied to the film’s emotional resonance. The new iterations, by contrast, are nondescript showcases of product, lost in a sea of IP mush, victims of a culture eating itself—like a lion devouring its own pride as prey.

Grade: D

Walt Disney Pictures will release Mufasa: The Lion King in theaters worldwide on December 20.