By Sandra Hall
MUFASA: THE LION KING ★★★
(PG) 118 minutes
Prequels, sequels, spin-offs, origin stories. Let me count the ways major Hollywood studios find to extract maximum mileage from their hits. Disney is particularly good at this. We’ve had the original animated Lion King, the Broadway adaptation, the re-animated CGI version made to simulate a live-action film. And now we have the prequel, the coming-of-age story of Simba’s father, Mufasa, which is also done in a photorealistic style.
A tinge of melancholy hangs over the whole exercise since we watched Mufasa killed in the earlier films, but that hasn’t been allowed to subdue the series’ characteristically epic tone. Comedy, tragedy, ecstasy, pain. It’s all part of the Circle of Life. And nothing can be too downbeat if it has new songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Young cub Mufasa in Mufasa: The Lion King.Credit: Disney
The comic relief has also returned. The story is told in flashback by Rafiki (John Kani), the mandrill, who thinks it’s time Simba’s daughter knew about her grandfather, while Pumbaa (Seth Rogen), the lovably muddled warthog, and Timon (Billy Eichner), the motor-mouthed meerkat, chip in.
It begins with the young Mufasa’s struggle to survive after losing his parents in a flash flood. He is floating down a river alone with no idea where he’s heading, when Taka, a prince of the local lion pride, sees him on the verge of being eaten by crocodiles. He steps in to save his life and the two bond to the rousing tune of Miranda’s song, I Always Wanted a Brother.
They are raised together by Taka’s parents until it’s decided that they should set out together to explore the wider world, and it proves to be an epic journey. They are stalked by a rival pride led by the fearsome Kiros (Mads Mikkelsen). They meet Sarabi (Tiffany Boone), the young lioness with whom Mufasa (Aaron Pierre) will fall in love, and by the end of it, we’ve seen Taka (Kelvin Harrison Jr), the spoilt, happy-go-lucky princeling with a seemingly big heart, change personality to become the franchise’s arch villain, Scar.
The film is directed by Barry Jenkins, who won the Oscar for Moonlight (2016) and he gives us a magnificent production with the emphasis on epic (that word again). The landscapes, achieved by a mixture of East African locations enhanced by CGI, become an integral part of the action as Mufasa, his friends and enemies, tumble from clifftops, plunge down waterfalls, wrestle their way through snowdrifts and find themselves wedged in crevasses.
And somehow they emerge with the wit to come up with yet another aphorism. And in Mufasa’s case, he finds enough breath left at the climax of it all to deliver a portentous speech about the importance of tolerance and understanding.
This was inevitable. Even though the series is careful to leaven the serious bits with wisecracks from the ever-voluble comedians in the cast, it has always been all too eager in getting its message across. And despite Jenkins’ skill in regulating the pace, this one has a repetitive feel to it. Enough is enough.
Mufasa: The Lion King is released in cinemas on December 19
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