A Review of Mufasa: The Lion King
To my surprise, when I sat down to watch a matinee screening of “Mufasa: The Lion King,” I was the only one in the theater. After the movie finished, I understood why.
Mufasa is the live-action backstory of a well-loved character from Disney’s original 1994 “The Lion King.” With impressive digital effects, elaborate CGI characters and bright landscape shots, Mufasa’s top-notch visual quality made it appear like the $200 million production it was.
However, that is where the movie’s appeal ends.
At no point in the movie was I engaged with the characters, convinced to employ my imagination or persuaded to take the film seriously — the movie made a laughingstock of itself.
I hoped for a riveting sneak peek into a previously unexplored character in the “Lion King” franchise, so it brings me no joy to say that “Mufasa” utterly failed in all its attempts to produce a compelling story.
Mufasa’s story is told by mandrill monkey Rafiki, and the events of his past are shown alongside the present telling of his granddaughter’s tale — a well-intentioned, but poorly-executed concept. The film unfortunately butchered this frame narrative format, as the transitions from Mufasa’s past to the present setting were disjointed and ill-timed.
This disruption was most clearly seen in the reappearance of the beloved duo Timon and Pumba, whose sole purpose was to interrupt the story with ill-timed jokes that devalued the conflict, undermined the stakes and ultimately negated the potency of its themes and messages. They were constant reminders that these events had already played out, so none of it really mattered.
The movie seemed unable to decide its genre, flipping between serious drama and playful Disney-esque musical — interspersing intense life-or-death chase sequences with goofy songs. The end result was incoherence.
This failure shows itself particularly in the hollow character of the main villain: a big, menacing white lion whose weak motivations are conquest and revenge, and whose twice-used silly tagline is, inexplicably, “bye-bye!” delivered much like a child waving goodbye to the school bus.
This disconnect between drama and comedy, or the compromising of its story for showiness, was not this movie’s only failure.
The songs for which the movie sacrificed its conflict all sounded exactly alike. Each one was an uninspired variation of rap, with generically energetic backing tracks, no matter the character or circumstance. Not one song contributed to the quality of the movie; nothing would change if they were all removed.
The one thing “Mufasa” managed to get right was the twist reveal of Scar’s origin, and subsequent fall into villainy. This subplot was the movie’s only redeeming quality.
If beautiful landscape views interest you, or if CGI is your passion, then “Mufasa” may be for you. However, let that be the only reason for your viewing of this movie, because you certainly will not find a story worth your time.
Rath is a feature reporter for the Liberty Champion.