Mufasa: The Lion King

Mufasa: The Lion King (2024) tells how Mufasa became king and shows that he began as an orphan. A flood separates him from his family and another pride takes him in. He grows up there alongside a prince named Taka, like a brother. Taka is the true heir; Mufasa is the outsider. The film is about how that relationship breaks, and what name Taka will eventually be known by is obvious from the start. So this is not a story about a king but about how a brother is lost. The most interesting thing is the choice of director. Barry Jenkins had made small scale, close up dramas like Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk. Putting him on a photorealistic Disney prequel was debated the day it was announced, and he had to defend the decision. The result is mixed. The landscape and movement are impressive, but photorealistic animal faces struggle to carry emotion, which was a problem in the previous film too. Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the songs, and there is a noticeable distance between them and the musical language of the 1994 film. The frame is Rafiki telling the story to Kiara, with Timon and Pumbaa interrupting to comment; those passages break the tone. It runs 118 minutes. Good for: family animation, the Lion King universe, and visual work. Less good for: the faces stay expressionless and the songs sit in the original's shadow.