REVIEW: Mufasa - The Lion King

To get to the point, Disney's new origin story for The Lion King's Mufasa fails at the ultimate directive of all prequels. By the end of the adventure, you don't actually feel like you know these guys any better.

Such has been the curse for nearly Disney's live-action spin-offs/remakes of the 2010s on. Disney supposes it's enough to learn more facts or anecdotes about your favorite characters, but the interview has always been more intricate than all that. There is no catharsis nor identification for the audience during Mufasa's culminating moment of uniting the animals of The Pridelands because the momentum pushing us here has been carried by cliche, not archetype.

Director Barry Jenkins' not-so-secret weapon has always been his ability to derive pathos from lyrical imagery, and he does great things with the African landscape without stepping into literal fantasy. This is much more aesthetically interesting than the dust bin of the 2019 remake while still appearing visually consistent with that film.

The film tries to reflect that majesty in the dialogue, but his royal highness keeps tripping over his own cape, tossing in all sorts of verbosities about "destiny" and "the place beyond the horizon" when it is not wanted. Perhaps to add variety, the script also tries to channel snappy exchanges from your nephew's favorite Saturday morning cartoon. ("I just saved our lives" *bad guy pops out of water* "You were saying?").

And for extra measure, the movie pads itself by incessantly flashing back (well, flashing forward) to the frame narrative of Timon, Pumbaa, and Kiara (Simba and Nala's daughter) listening to Rafiki recount the story while Timon and Pumbaa hork out some more of that self-aware commentary that Disney enthusiasts have absolutely been asking for ... I tried keeping track of how often we snapped back to the present time, but I lost count around five--and this was before Mufasa had even met up with Rafiki.

Congratulations, Disney, you did with metatextuality what hand-drawn animation could not do with flatulence: you actually made Timon and Pumbaa annoying.

Honestly, I'm not convinced that (ignore the commercial viability for a moment) this movie wouldn't have been better without dialogue. Drop the self-important banter, the endless exposition, the entry-level treatise on monarchy and xenophobia, and just watch these beasts travail the landscape. Go watch Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Bear and tell me it couldn't have worked.

Jenkins isn't the only one living below his potential either. Miranda's musical style is recognizable here, but it's an empty package, the music always cutting off just as you realize you haven't learned anything new about the characters or the situation over the last 2-3 minutes.

Sincerely, thank you for trying, Mr. Jenkins. Now we can say for certain that not even a master director can rescue a story so resigned to mediocrity.

--The Professor

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