Director: Barry Jenkins
Stars: Aaron Pierre, Kelvin Harrison, Jr., Tiffany Boone
Mufasa: The Lion King isn’t the kind of film that usually lands on The Lost Highway Hotel’s radar. There was a time when I did try to thanklessly cover the movies I had no particular interest in (Hollywood’s broad superhero and animation efforts), but this has long-since passed. Life’s too short and such titles get bums on seats and column inches without my limited assistance. Given how phenomenally bad Jon Favreau’s 2019 ‘live action’ The Lion King was, what reason would I have to join the queues this Christmas for yet another lacklustre-looking Disney IP extension?
Two words. Barry Jenkins. One of the greatest active American filmmakers downed tools having made the triple-hit combo of Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk and The Underground Railroad to seemingly cash-in his chips with the House of Mouse and make THIS; digital slurry that nobody was asking for. It was a move so far out of left field that I – and I suspect a number of others – couldn’t help but second guess the motives to do so. Jenkins need not justify himself of course. The technical challenge may have been enough of a draw. But after the effortless poetry that sang from those prior works – works so infused with the real and the humane – how could this possibly stack up?
The answer is it doesn’t, of course. Squint hard enough and you’ll find some evidence of Jenkins in there, but this is very much a for-hire feeling gig, even if Jenkins has poured himself into the mechanics of the task (interviews of late smack worryingly of the recently indoctrinated). It is better than Favreau’s film, mainly thanks to being, by design, a little less thunderously redundant. A story we didn’t know already. But it’s never a necessary watch, and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s lacklustre peppering of new songs make that abundantly clear.
Braced by an irksome wraparound that this is a story being told to Simba’s wily young cub Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter) by Rafiki (John Kani), Mufasa throws us back down the timeline for an origin tale that plays a little like A’ziah ‘Zola’ King’s now-infamous “You wanna hear a story about how me and this bitch here fell out? It’s kinda long, but it’s full of suspense…”
It does feel kinda long, but the suspense is minimal. Mufasa (Braelyn Rankins, Aaron Pierre) is accidentally separated from his pride, swept away down a river that precipitates a burgeoning fear of water. He is rescued by a scrappy young prince cub named Taka (Theo Somolu, Kelvin Harrison, Jr.) and awkwardly folded into a new family unit, in spite of the patriarch Obasi’s (Lennie James) deep suspicion of adopting a stray. Yet trouble rears (or roars) it’s head when a flank of white lions led by Kiros (Mads Mikkelsen) challenge for territory. Mufasa and Taka are sent away so as to be spared the sight of bloodshed (or, even worse, another song from Kiros).
What unfurls from there is a simple but effective-enough chase film. Kiros and his band of serial colonialists pursue Mufasa and Taka who, in turn, pick up further strays on their journey – lioness Sarabi (Tiffany Boone), and younger, energised versions of Rafiki (Kagiso Lediga) and Zazu (Preston Nyman) – creating a found-family as they go. Their target destination, one and all, is the valley of Milele, here given the outsider’s reverence of an African El Dorado.
A hazardous trip over a snowy mountain range allows Mufasa to shake up its colour palette in the middle. A godsend, actually, as all those grassy plains were starting to look indeterminable. The closer Mufasa gets to a humanistic drama – a developed-enough love triangle between the three lions – the more Jenkins is able to wrestle something interesting out of things. As poor as Manuel-Miranda’s songs are on this occasion, the mountaintop ballad handed off from one voice to another is probably the movie’s most arresting belter, because Jenkins has a sure footing on the emotion. But Mufasa struggles to feel as well plotted as it’s giant forbearer; a tough ask anyway when we’re talking about a Shakespeare adaptation. Even those who have mostly forgotten The Lion King will grasp pretty early on where Taka’s tale is headed.
Alas, it means the third act -which plays out like the animal kingdom’s take on a Marvel battle scene – feels rote and perfunctory, a menagerie of things you’ve seen in other CG forms. Adam Valdez and the VFX artists have come on in their ability to make these animals expressive. We’re still a long way from the claimed ‘photo realism’ of this technology, though. Everything looks kinda hideous. This is better disguised in the (rare) instances that the film picks up energy and we’re prancing through the generally impressive terrain. But Jenkins’ signature to-camera close-ups on his cast feel oddly combative when it’s these uncanny-valley cats staring right at you.
So, no. It’s not a great film. It was a bit of a fool’s errand hoping it would be, really. That Jenkins would scratch some kind of signature onto this effort. You can argue it tessellates thematically with elements of his wider work, but its a lesser version in every sense and (dependant on his choices from here) will likely stand as the strange outlier in his filmography. The voice cast can at least hold their heads up, mostly, with particular praise going to Boone and Lediga for their by-turns sultry and energised contributions. And it’s heart-warming yet bittersweet to see a dedication card to James Earl Jones right up front before the curtain’s raised.
The best that can be said is that this has a better sense of its own identity than Favreau’s piece, but it’s hollow praise. Kids will probably titter at the inane too-meta jokes of Pumbaa (Seth Rogen) and Timon (Billy Eichner), but for anyone over 10 their interjections only hamper the telling of an OK story. One that’ll be just another scrolled-over rectangle on Disney+ before too long.
The Lost Highway Hotel 