‘Mufasa’: An improvement, but not by much

*Spoiler Alert*

“Mufasa” is indeed an improvement from the 2019 “The Lion King” film, but still not an improvement to the 1994 “The Lion King” film. Despite my strong opinion on the 2019 film, I still wanted to see this one, and reading the IMDB reviews, surprisingly a good chunk were positive.

Visually and musically, it’s an improvement, and does something legitimately unique and different. On the visual side, you can tell they tried more than the 2019 version to create something majestic, and there were a few moments of gorgeous shots.

Lin Manuel Miranda’s songs, I will admit, unsurprisingly don’t compare to the 1994 songs, and I don’t see any of them reaching the iconic status. However, they are still catchy, fun, and invoke a legitimate sense of wonder. I love his work on “Moana” and “Encanto,” so there’s naturally going to be some semblance of nostalgia in whatever he works on.

The film itself features Rafiki narrating Mufasa’s backstory to Simba’s daughter, Kiara, the future queen, with Timon and Pumbaa listening in.

Timon and Pumbaa, the best things about the 2019 film, are as great as ever here. Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner once again deliver a passionate performance with legit funny lines. They have practically become one with these characters.

There’s also a nice arc with Rafiki and his family that ties into Mufasa’s backstory, which I thought was a nice touch since we never really saw his family before. Those are the most positive things I can say about it, and now we’re going to get into the most distracting issue.

With Scar’s backstory, in my opinion, they completely dropped the ball. Literally, his original name was Taka. We don’t even know how he became known as Scar until the very end, and it is a bit forced and feels a bit too sympathetic for this character.

This is really where the main problem is. It feels like they are making him too sympathetic here, and Mufasa, surprisingly, is kind of stupid here. It’s Mufasa’s decisions that led to Scar betraying him, only to have this last minute change before it’s too late. There’s no logical explanation at all for some of his decisions, even looking up the plot of the movie online after watching didn’t seem to fully make sense of them.

Scar is one of the nastiest of the animated Disney villains, and he is easily in my top five villains, along with Frollo, Shan-yu, Coachman, and Dr. Facilier. He is meant to be a pure evil character with no redeeming qualities, a character you love to hate, and that’s what makes a truly great villain.

Mufasa is kind of in the wrong here. There’s this whole song about how Scar feels he was betrayed by Mufasa.

On its own, I think it is a decent film that delivers on the entertainment value, but the key phrase is, on its own! I don’t buy this as the legitimate backstory. It’s so hard to see Scar the same way again after this, which is why I view this as more of a “what if” than what happened.

Yes, it’s Scar’s backstory as well as Mufasa’s, so I guess you’d expect some type of explanation for how Scar became the way he is that would be a bit tragic, but Mufasa just makes some really stupid decisions here. It makes no sense!

Oh, and Scar isn’t even Mufasa’s biological brother, just an adopted brother. What? Mufasa isn’t even born into royalty! So, Scar was entitled to be the future king. It feels forced! Scar not being his actual brother mitigates his villainy, which again is why I don’t buy this as what happened.

Him being his actual brother in the original, just made his villainy all the worse, so to think they’re not even related kind of mitigates the impact, doesn’t it? So did this need to be made? No. Was anyone asking for this? Definitely not.

It’s an obvious cash grab, but as obvious cash grabs go, there is effort, there is weight, and it’s not soulless. Unlike the 2019 film, it’s at least not the same thing with nothing new added. I do like seeing Rafiki’s family and his arc as an outcast, I do like these new songs, and emotionally I felt more.

Was it just me, or were there more expressions to these characters? One of the main criticisms of the 2019 film was the lack of expressions, so it seems that maybe they sought to improve on that.

I did not like it, but for me, it’s not enough to ruin the movie solely on its merit. It’s like “Maleficent” or the 2000’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” something I’d rather not connect to the source material but take as uniquely their own thing. Looked at from that angle, they don’t ruin their source material, which can be taken as independent, and here, I say it’s the same.

The good stuff is good, while the not so good stuff… is why I will never connect this to the original.