‘Mufasa’ review: A surprisingly poignant story of brothers and hope

The idea of a movie centered around Mufasa was both confusing and intriguing. Yet what Mufasa: The Lion King does is use our culture love of the original film and give us a new perspective on it. A real Lion King classic move if you ask me.

Mufasa (Aaron Pierre) is a young lion cub who loses his way and ends up with Taka (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) and his family. Growing up with the female lions of Obasi’s (Lennie James) pride, Mufasa learns how to be a compassionate lion who can hunt and is fierce in his love. Mufasa provides us with all the reasons as to why Mufasa ends up being the beloved king of Pride Rock that we know him to be.

But where I really found love within this movie came from the music by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Paying beautiful homage to the music by Tim Rice and Elton John in the original animated film, Miranda’s songs mirror those classics in a lot of ways. But they find ways of being unique to Mufasa and Taka’s story.

Did I need a “Scar” like villain in Kiros (Mads Mikkelsen)? No but it added context to who Taka eventually will become. I am still not a fan of the “live-action” aspect of the film. It isn’t live-action if lions are speaking English in my humble opinion. But the story captivated me enough to push my dislike of the format aside and that’s the power of Barry Jenkins as a storyteller. I am wrapped up in how these brothers went from loving cubs to the “Long live the King” of it all.

I just wish we would go back to the classic Disney animation

Telling new stories in the universe of The Lion King is great. I’ll even forgive that this one was not really based on a William Shakespeare play as all other takes on Simba’s story have been. (I do think that this could have easily been a take on Othello or, in my heart, a take on Macbeth. But it is just sadly not.)

What I think works to Mufasa advantage is that you do have references to movies like The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride sprinkled in. Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter) is hearing this story as Simba (Donald Glover) and Nala (Beyoncé Knowles-Carter) are away having a new cub. As someone who loves Simba’s Pride very dearly, it made me happy to see Kiara continue within the world.

But I do wish that this movie still had that Shakespearean connection. I think it would have benefitted Taka and Mufasa’s story even more so than the movie already does. But regardless of that, I am even fonder of The Lion King as a collective. I understand more of Mufasa’s motivations towards his brother and watching Taka become my favorite Disney villain was surprisingly fun to see.

The real issue with these movies continues to be the live-action aspect of them. If this had been the old school style of The Lion King, I do think it would be an instant classic. But we’re left with realistic looking lions speaking and it does at time give an uncanny valley feel to things.