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It’s no surprise that Disney decided to make a sequel to their “live-action” remake of The Lion King. After all, the film made over a billion dollars at the worldwide box-office! However, the sequel would not be based on Disneytoon Studios’ The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride; instead it turned out to be an original film detailing Mufasa’s backstory. Was it any good? Read on to find out!
(And like I said when I reviewed The Lion King, yes, I know this is an animated film and not a “live-action” one, but Disney is treating it as such and it’s my blog, so I can do what I want, hence I choose to review it on this blog rather than my animation blog.)
And remember, SPOILERS AHEAD!
Directed by Barry Jenkins, the film begins with a song, Ngomso, which acts in a similar manner to Circle of Life and He Lives in You from previous The Lion King films. In it, we recognize the significance of Pride Rock, the power of the lions who rule from there, and the loyalty of the animal subjects to the lion kingdom.
King Simba (voiced again by Donald Glover) has to leave his young daughter, Kiara (voiced by Blue Ivy Carter), for a night while he meets his queen Nala (voiced again by Beyoncé Knowles-Carter) who is away for an unspecified reason. He leaves Kiara in the care of his meerkat and warthog friends, Timon and Pumbaa (voiced again by Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen, respectively). None of the three are happy with this arrangement, but the wise mandrill, Rafiki (voiced again John Kani), comes in to save the day. He offers to tell Kiara a story about a cub not much different than her, a story about her grandfather, Mufasa.
The story is portrayed via flashbacks and we meet young Mufasa (voiced by Braelyn and Brielle Rankins) along with his parents, Masego and Afia (voiced by Keith David and Anika Noni Rose, respectively). They’re a happy, loving family on a mission to find a utopia known as The Great Valley Milele, which they sing about. Unfortunately, a flood tragically results in Masego’s death and Mufasa is separated from Afia.
Mufasa washes up in a wetland area where he meets a young cub, Taka (voiced by Theo Somolu). The two hit it off pretty quickly which angers Taka’s father, Obasi (voiced by Lennie James), the leader of their pride. He recognizes Mufasa as an outsider and is upset with Taka for befriending him. However, Taka’s mother, Eshe (voiced by Thandiwe Newton), defends Mufasa. Obasi sets up a race between Mufasa and Taka to determine if Mufasa can stay with their pride. Taka loses on purpose allowing Mufasa to stay, much to Obasi’s displeasure. As a result of this, Eshe raises Mufasa as one of her own alongside Taka. Mufasa and Taka are happy to have each other as a brother which is evident in the song, I Always Wanted a Brother.
As the years go by, the two remain close although Obasi still never fully accepts Mufasa. One day, Eshe, Mufasa, and Taka are attacked by two white lions from a pride known as the Outsiders (they’re called that as they’re all white lions who have been outcast from their original prides). Taka is scared and runs away, but Mufasa fights to defend Eshe resulting in the death of one of the white lions.
When the leader of the white lions, Kiros (voiced by Mads Mikkelsen), hears about the white lion’s death (who happens to be his son), he vows vengeance on Mufasa. When Obasi hears about Taka’s cowardice, he’s ashamed and orders Taka to go away somewhere where nobody knows him so that the coward label will not be associated with him. He humbles himself towards Mufasa for protecting Eshe and tells him to go with Taka to support him and to leave quickly before the Outsiders attack.
After they leave, the Outsiders find Obasi and Eshe’s pride. Kiros sings a villain song, Bye Bye, and then, along with the other Outsiders, kills Obasi, Eshe, and the rest of the pride. They then try to chase after Mufasa and Taka, but the two manage to escape the Outsiders’ clutches.
As they continue on their journey, Mufasa and Taka meet a lioness princess, Sarabi (voiced by Tiffany Boone), and her royal hornbill scout/guard, Zazu (voiced by Preston Nyman). She’s since lost her pride and Mufasa and Taka convince her to join them. They also soon meet Rafiki who was banished from his baboon tribe as they accused him of summoning spirits and bringing bad luck to them. He’s had visions of meeting his brother (who was also banished) in Milele and together, all five of them go forth searching for Milele while singing, We Go Together.
By now, Taka has a crush on Sarabi and seeks Mufasa’s help to talk to her, which doesn’t go very well. Mufasa also protects Sarabi from an elephant stampede while she was unconscious and tells her it was Taka who protected her. She’s grateful to Taka, but has her suspicions. Eventually she realizes it was Mufasa who protected her, not Taka, and confronts him while in the mountains. Mufasa confesses his love for her, but also his loyalty to Taka, and the two sing a love duet, Tell Me It’s You.
Taka witnesses this from afar and feels betrayed by Mufasa. He pours out his emotions in the song, Brother Betrayed. His anger and jealousy causes him to meet up with Kiros and the Outsiders and divulges Mufasa’s whereabouts. By now, Mufasa and the others have arrived in Milele, but Kiros and his pride attack. Mufasa realizes that Taka betrayed them and almost drowns during the battle. Fortunately though, Taka has a change of heart, and saves Mufasa from drowning. In the end, they’re able to defeat the Outsiders, Kiros is killed by a boulder, and Mufasa is heralded as King of Milele.
Taka seeks forgiveness from Mufasa for what he’s done. Mufasa forgives him somewhat and doesn’t banish him, but says that he will never call him by his name again. Taka proposes that he refer to him as Scar from now on (due to a scar he gained across his eye during the Milele battle) to serve as a constant reminder of what he did. Also Mufasa finally reunites with his mother, Afia, who found her way to Milele as well.
Back to the present day, Kiara is amazed by her grandfather’s story and is proud of his legacy. We also find out that the reason Simba and Nala went away was because Nala gave birth to a new baby boy cub (Kion from The Lion Guard, presumably).
And that was Mufasa: The Lion King! It was fine at best. It had some great visual backgrounds and character design of the lions. I especially loved seeing white lions being portrayed!
The songs were the biggest letdown of the film though! Nobody’s expecting them to be better than the original The Lion King songs, but how the heck does Lin-Manuel Miranda manage to create such forgettable and overall bad songs??? If it was anybody else, I could understand it, but Lin-Manuel???
The story and voice acting were also nothing praiseworthy. Much of the story involved them walking to Milele and none of the voice actors wowed me. I was also so annoyed with Timon and Pumbaa and felt the movie would have been better had they just not included their characters in this film!
Overall, this film is pretty much exactly what you’d expect it to be, nothing kingly by a long shot!
So, my final score for this film is 21/35 = 60% (D-) !
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