I was extremely skeptical going into Mufasa: The Lion King, but as I’ve said before, going to the theater with family is always worth the trip. Plus, I wanted an excuse to gawk at what I assumed would be the cinematic equivalent of a car accident. Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight is a contemporary classic, but I’ve been dismayed that the Oscar-winner signed on to Disney‘s creatively bankrupt live-action endeavor since I heard the news.
Barry Jenkins Made The Most Out Of Mufasa
Despite my reservations, Mufasa: The Lion King is actually pretty good. Jenkins brings in some interesting camera work, and an early chase between Mufasa and his adoptive brother, Taka, is more visceral than live-action adaptations of Disney movies tend to be. Jenkins sticks the camera in the tall grass to effectively simulate the experience of lions racing, and even mounts the camera to Mufasa’s face like a virtual GoPro at one point. It’s more thoughtful camera work than these remakes have typically employed.
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Plus, the Lin-Manuel Miranda-penned songs are generally pretty good and help elevate the movie beyond what the recent Miranda-less Moana 2 was able to achieve. Taka singing, “What did you say ’bout my brother? That’s not a stray, that’s my brother!” has been thoroughly memed on TikTok and Twitter, but in context, I think the song is pretty good. And the group number “We Go Together” is straight-up great, an infectious pop song that infuses the movie with energy as it heads into its second half.
Hand-Drawn Animation Would Have Elevated Mufasa
The biggest problem the movie has is… well, that it looks like that. The version Jenkins delivered was a solid seven out of ten, but if he had made the exact same movie with traditional animation, it could have been excellent.
This was a bigger problem for Jon Favreau’s realistically animated Lion King because it was based on the original movie, which the audience already knew front to back. It’s hard to be excited about watching a realistic-looking, but artless, recreation of one of the most gorgeous animated movies ever made. A real lion’s face can’t express the same emotion as an animated lion, and real lions don’t look much different from each other. Real warthogs and meerkats and monkeys just don’t look as cute or iconic as animated versions that accentuate their colors and distinctive features. While watching the 2019 Lion King, I couldn’t get over how drab these choices made it feel when compared with its source material.
But Mufasa: The Lion King doesn’t have a direct comparison. It’s a prequel/sequel to the live-action remake, telling a new story instead of recreating something we’ve already seen done better. During that standout chase sequence, I wasn’t thinking about how much better the animated version did it, because there is no animated version. As a result, I found it easier to look past the movie’s visual style, and focus on the story, characters, and music — which all worked pretty well for me.
Still, it would have worked better if Disney had just made an animated movie. A CG animated movie like Moana or Frozen would be fine, and a hand-drawn animated movie would be preferable, but this ‘live-action’ approach to CGI is the worst of both worlds. It’s not as expressive or colorful as animation, but also not as tactile as live action. It’s an ugly middle ground that you could compare to a video game cutscene, but honestly, I prefer the look of actual video game cutscenes. Jenkins does a good job with the aesthetic he was expected to use, but it’s a shame that Disney is committed to that aesthetic in the first place.
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