‘Mufasa,’ or: How the Original Lion King Got His Groove On

Long before he ruled over everything the light touches, lead creatures from the crawling ant to the leaping antelope, and issued proclamations with the gravitas of a CNN-tagline announcer, Mufasa the lion king was just a lion cub. He, too, had parents that loved and nurtured him, and spoke of a future in which the sun rose and set on paradise. Mufasa would also experience great tragedy and great adventures, betrayal and romance, tests of bravery and the opportunity to sing Broadway-friendly show tunes. For so long, he was simply the father figure and the foundational trauma behind his son Simba’s story. Surely, Mufasa deserved a chance to be the Mane Event — the one who earned his own personal bid for a digitally enhanced, circle-of-life story.

And lo, the powers that be looked upon the land that all creatures bright and beautiful did tread, and declared: Let there be a holiday-release prequel! Located both deep in the heart of Kenya’s Great Rift Valley and the slightly more uncanny one that exists between computer-generated animation and the real thing, Mufasa: The Lion King builds off Jon Favreau’s 2019 redo of the landmark Disney movie while giving its original basso profundo regent his own teased-out origin myth. That it opens by paying tribute to the late, great James Earl Jones, known to several generations as the booming voice of Mufasa, rather than simply closing with a dedication, is an early sign that reverence for what came before will be the name of the game. Ditto the fact that the power of narrative as a guiding light and the glory of brand extension get threaded in from the jump, with the movie picking up where things left off so it can push forward while framing the flashbacks. We tell ourselves stories in order to live. Corporate movie studios tell you stories in order to keep their board happy and make their bottom line. Find the Venn diagram center between the two, and that’s where this Hakuna Matata 2.0 lies.

What originally attracted attention was not the fact that Disney was gunning for a sequel to its NatGeo-with-benefits reimagining of an animated classic, but who they’d hired to do it. Barry Jenkins is a 21st century auteur, full stop, and such artists tend to either noticeably chafe against the limitations of working for hire or manage to slyly subvert the system from within. The Moonlight director does neither here. There are longer-than-usual takes in scenes meant for modern audiences weened on ADHD-style editing, more grace notes than you might expect in the musical numbers (notably in a duet played between sheets of image-warping ice), a handful of images — a lion’s head in a cloud, a long shot of a tiny animal thrashing in circles underwater — that come close to making you gasp.

Yet Jenkins isn’t trying to brusquely shove arthouse aesthetics into this family-friendly blockbuster like pills in spooned sugar. He’s simply invested in doing a job to the best of his abilities, to tell you a tale that will thrill you, touch you, maybe take you out of your head space for two hours in a manner befitting both patrons and paying customers. And while we’re not going to pretend that watching eerily realistic jungle cats croon as if they were still cartoon characters isn’t completely distracting, or that Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner manically cracking jokes in the form of faithfully rendered CGI critters doesn’t make their double act less grating, or that seeing iconic callbacks to the 1994 film given the pixelized flesh-and-blood treatment doesn’t make you pine for the original that much more, this prequel benefits from having someone of Jenkins’ talent behind it. The man beautifully understands how transformative four simple words can be: Once upon a time….

So yes, gather round, because while Simba and Nala (Donald Glover and Beyoncé, reprising their voice roles) go off to the birthing grounds in order to give Ciara (Blue Ivy Carter) a sibling, the wise and all-knowing mandrill Rafiki (John Kani) is going to tell the youngster a story. Once upon a time, a small but brave cub named Mufasa (Braelyn Rankins) was separated from his mother and father when a flash flood washed them away. Floating down a makeshift river, he meets another cub, Taka (Theo Somolu). The latter saves the former from a hungry crocodile, and despite the insistence of the pride’s king, Obasi (Lennie James), that strays are not welcome, Mufasa is reluctantly allowed in. The queen, Eshe (Thandiwe Newton), takes him under her paw and teaches him how to hunt. He and the princeling Taka become brothers in all but blood.

Life goes on, in more or less circular motions, until a new pride enters the picture. These lions are white, aggressive, and led by Kiros (Mads Mikkelsen, instantly entering the canon of sneering Disney villains). Their plan to take over doesn’t involve survivors. And for reasons we won’t get into, he has a particular bone to pick with the now-older Mufasa (Rebel Ridge‘s Aaron Pierre). When Kiros attacks, he and Taka (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) make a getaway and head in search of Milele, a.k.a. the Eden that Mufasa’s parents once spoke of. Along the way, they meet the younger Rafiki (Kagiso Lediga), an annoyingly by-the-book bird named Zazu (Preston Nyman) and a lioness named Sarabi (Tiffany Boone).

From here, Mufasa: The Lion King shifts into third gear, leading the group through icy mountains and toward the mythical Shangri-La. Hot pursuits! Close calls! Elephant stampedes! Love is in the air! So are the requisite Disney songs! There’s nothing near as earworm-level as “Hakuna Matata” or majestically overwhelming as Elton John’s “Circle of Life,” though not for lack of trying on Lin-Manuel Miranda‘s part. Wisely, however, the Hamilton creator doesn’t view those tunes as competition so much as benchmarks to aim for, and his contributions to the soundtrack — notably the one-for-all, all-for-all anthem “We Go Together” and the ballad “Tell Me It’s You,” which could have been a Hamilton outtake — feel more like he’s bending over backwards to complement those earlier karaoke staples. (You may have found yourself missing his touch after Moana 2, and these Miranda jams remind you why he’s built for these kinds of things.) Once again, reverence reigns supreme.

So does a sense of déjà vu, but that’s by design, and when it comes to these new reiterations of beloved old touchstones, that’s considered more feature than bug. We’re still not convinced that the wave of live-action Disney remakes add much to the original stories or the overall House-of-Mouse mix, other than 10ccs of pharmaceutical-grade nostalgia and some Scrooge McDuck-sized piles of gold coins to the coffers. What Mufasa demonstrates, however, is that these endeavors don’t need to be totally, creatively bankrupt. Jenkins is not trying to reinvent the wheel, nor is he trying take over the assembly line. He’s merely tweaking the car’s engine to make it run a little more efficiently, to make them a little less disposable, to give you a smoother ride. He’s not trying to impose his sensibility on things, but see where his vision of the world and this giant, corporate behemoth of a blockbuster might sync up. The prequel is meant to fill in the blanks of a towering figure within the franchise’s lore. It’s How Mufasa Got His Groove On. What the true legacy of Jenkins’ addition to the catalog may end up being, however, is a template for honoring the past while still managing to move things a few steps ahead. The circle of life, indeed.

From Rolling Stone US.