Mufasa: The Lion King - Review

Mufasa the Lion King hits theaters this weekend. This is actually the second title for the movie. The original working title was The Lion King 2. You want to know how I got these scars? This video is brought to you by Chubbies. Go to chubbieshorts.com and use the code DAN20 for a special offer and stay tuned after the video for more info. Hello everybody from the road once again. I'm Dan Merl here with my review of Mufasa the Lion King which does open in theaters this weekend. I get in Sonic the Hedgehog 3. I'll have my review for that film tomorrow morning right here on the channel. Mufasa is directed by Barry Jenkins and I thought that he was an interesting choice to direct this film. I was hoping that maybe they chose him because he had an approach or some kind of a visual style that would make it stand out or feel unique in some way but it seemed to me like this was a case of Disney borrowing the prestige of a director who is very popular in order to essentially shepherd their pre-visualization of the movie through the production process because I didn't really see a whole lot there that screamed auteur to me. The screenplay for the film is by Jeff Nathanson who also adapted the original Lion King back in 2019 and also wrote The Young Woman in the Sea which was released earlier this year. Aaron Pierre has the unenviable task of following James Earl Jones in the role as Mufasa albeit as a much younger lion with Braylon Rankins voicing him as a cub. When Mufasa is separated from his family he's found by another cub named Taka voiced by Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Theo Somalu as a cub. Taka is part of another lion pride and the two of them bond and eventually become adopted siblings. Mufasa and Taka grew up together but find their lives upended when a pack of white lions led by the sinister Kyros, voiced by Mass Mickelson, seeks to take over the kingdom and sends the lions fleeing in search of a legendary paradise where the circle of life continues unthreatened. Along the way Taka and Mufasa meet future Queen Sarabi, voiced by Tiffany Boone, as well as wise shaman Rafiki and a not-yet-John-Oliver Zazu and the whole movie is presented as a flashback via a story that's being told to Simba's daughter Kiara, voiced by Blue Ivy Carter, by an older Rafiki with returning comic relief Timon and Pumbaa back to crack wise. If that description seemed like a it's because there is a lot of stuff that is jammed into the movie's runtime. You have the origin of Mufasa and Scar, you have the new songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda, you have the new villainous lion pride, you have the present-day framing device. It feels like this is a script that came in at about a hundred and fifty pages and Disney issued a directive that said okay but you got to get it down to two hours. Instead of cutting the material down it just feels like they tried to jam everything into a shorter runtime and consequently Mufasa feels very rushed. It seems to sprint from one thing to another breathlessly and sometimes I mean that literally because there are scenes where it feels like the actors were just told to jam all of the dialogue into it as quickly as possible, no beats, no dramatic pauses, and the result is a movie that feels more like a perpetual motion machine that has to keep moving than a movie designed to have the best most optimal effect on audiences. I wasn't a big fan of 2019's The Lion King because it felt to me like an inferior lifeless and unnecessary recreation of a much better traditionally animated film but it made a billion dollars so a sequel was inevitable. Still I walked into this movie optimistic because at least it could be unshackled from having to replicate another movie that already exists and I think that the overall story is promising. The Taka Mufasa relationship is well drawn and the general arc of the story just in broad strokes is compelling but it's all weightless because the movie's so concerned about where it's going that it doesn't stop to let the audience appreciate where it is. There is one exception to this and that is during these songs that are written by Lin Manuel Miranda because I'm guessing it's a lot harder to ask him to double time everything that he's writing and in the musical numbers you actually see the characters able to feel, able to express those feelings and have time for those feelings to land and it's really a reminder I think of what Moana 2 lost when Lin Manuel Miranda didn't come back for that sequel likely because he was working on this one. While there's no we don't talk about Bruno on the movie's soundtrack, at least I don't think so, the songs are catchy and plot appropriate including a delicious villain song from Bess Mickelson that brought me back to my Scream Junkies days and Hal Rudnick's signature sign-off every week on the Scream Junkies show. I certainly hope that he's getting some royalties from that song. It really is a shame that so much is crammed into the movie because the Taka Mufasa relationship needed a lot more time to let the film and the actors explore their roles. Taka is a tragic figure at times reminding me of the Phantom of the Opera and this could have been an almost operatic arc but here it's just one of several things that all seem to be happening at once. Honestly I think that Mufasa should have ditched the modern-day framing device because Mufasa's importance to the legacy and to the ancestral history of the pride and of the kingdom was established in the first movie. It was one of the main themes of the first movie. If you get rid of that modern-day framing device you can use that runtime to explore the story and the characters in this movie but if you did that then you couldn't have Donald Glover's voice in the movie, you couldn't have Beyonce coming back, you wouldn't have Blue Ivy Carter voicing Simba's daughter and thus you would lose the marketing hook that the presence of those people provides and you can tell that Disney wanted to have that marketing hook. They wanted to have Timon and Pumbaa pop up in the trailer to remind people of the first movie and thus we I think waste time on a framing device that's just not necessary. It felt to me that the Disney strings were more visible in this movie than almost any movie recently that I can remember. I mean I could almost hear the executives whispering into Barry Jenkins ear that this movie can't be longer than two hours because we have to keep the kids attention and much of the script feels like a corporate checklist of Lion King iconography that has to be included but what's lost is a lot of what makes the movie actually you know good and I think it's really to Barry Jenkins credit that the air isn't squeezed entirely out of the film. When Mufasa speaks you should be stirred and inspired this is the voice of a king that spans generations and yet when it comes to the third act and it's time for Mufasa to give his big rousing speech it feels more like Aaron Pierre was given a sheet of paper and said okay listen you just got to get through this speech as fast as you can. I like the idea of what Mufasa wanted to be more than I like the movie itself. Disney is often a company that just can't get out of their own way and I think that they may have cost themselves a much better movie in favor of a shorter more marketable one. Ironically the movie throws so much at you so fast that I'm curious about how younger kids are gonna respond to it because I think a lot of them may just be overwhelmed or confused by the volume of stuff that's happening. As for everybody else I think that your opinion of this movie is probably gonna be somewhat closely tied to what you thought of the 2019 remake. If you really liked that movie then I think that you'll probably enjoy this one. If you didn't like that movie I don't really see Mufasa winning over a whole bunch of fans who already weren't on board with the first one. That was certainly the case for me and it's just too scattered and too all over the place I think to bring somebody back from the other side. I liked the movie when it achieved or tried to achieve its own ambitions but it was just far too rushed to have the full impact on me and to land in the it's good category so on my personal ranking scale it lands in the upper part of it's fine with the note that the good parts are quite good but that they're let down by just about everything else. So those are my thoughts on Mufasa the Lion King. What do you think? Are you gonna be heading out to theaters to see it this weekend? Let me know down in the comments below and before we go I want to thank the sponsor for this video. This video is brought to you by Chubbies. Christmas is just a week away which means if you don't live somewhere cold you may well be traveling somewhere that is. Well it's not too late to upgrade your winter wardrobe because Chubbies has certified winterproof jackets, vests, sweatshirts, quarter zips, full zips, flannels, basically anything you need to stay warm. 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Support the show and tell them that I sent you. This holiday season find the perfect gift for you and your loved ones at Chubbies. Thanks to Chubbies for sponsoring this video and thank you for watching. Be sure to stay tuned right here. I'll be back tomorrow morning with my review for Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Until then stay safe and I'll see you next time. Bye.