Mufasa – The Lion King is the prequel to “The Lion King”, a remake of the 1994 animated feature film. This new film is directed by Barry Jenkins and will take us into a narrative area that has never been explored until now.
Some time has passed since the events of the first film, which saw Simba become the new king, in the Pride Lands of Tanzania. He and Nala gave birth to a little lioness named Kiara and are now having another. While Simba and Nala leave the kingdom to give birth to their second child, little Kiara misses her parents and is also afraid of storms. Luckily, however, she is not alone, and enjoys the company of the mandrill Rafiki and Timon and Pumba. While they are sheltered in a cave, Rafiki decides to tell Kiara the story of his grandfather Mufasa and how he had everything and how he became king, while Timon and Pumba add comments and comic skits to the story.
The puppy Mufasa
The story begins with Mufasa who is still an inexperienced cub and was next to his parents, Masego and Afia. The three were looking for the mythical Milele, the land of abundance where they would find refuge from the drought and also a lot of food, but during the rainy day the little lion gets caught in a river overflow and gets lost, moving away from his parents.
Little Mufasa remains alone until he is found by a puppy named Taka (the prince who later became Scar) and is then adopted by the pack, despite the leader Obasi being reluctant to adopt a “stray”. Obasi warns little Taka against a possible betrayal by Mufasa, but the prince is happy to have a brother and does not think at all about the fact that he could be betrayed by him.
Little Mufasa grows up with them, but will soon have to deal with a group of white lions, the Outcasts, led by the evil Kiros, after he killed the latter’s son in a fight while trying to protect his mother. Kiros is thirsty for revenge and so Mufasa and Taka flee and set out in search of Milele, together with the young Sarabi, the young Rafiki and the hornbill Zazu.
An interesting prequel…
The new Disney Live-Action presents itself as a totally authorial story with the intention of exploring the origins of a character who has entered everyone’s hearts (and who has also left a trauma, those who have seen The Lion King will remember it very well) and it turned out to be an interesting opportunity. Indeed, nothing was known about Mufasa’s origins (until today) and instead of re-proposing “yet another Disney Classic” already known in Live-Action style, they wanted to add a new story (still remaining in Live-Action) to a Much loved classic, returning and exploring new corners in the “Circle Of Life”. Be careful though, rather than a Live-Action it is right to define it as a full-fledged animated film, with realistic animal protagonists born from CGI (a modern and well-established technique in these times).
Mufasa – The Lion King initially presents itself as a sequel, where it takes into account the events that occurred in “The Lion King” (the version released in 2019), and while the current King moves away from the kingdom, little Kiara listens to the story of Rafiki. From here the film continues with a montage that includes several passages between past and present: the first timeline does its duty to narrate Mufasa’s exploits, while the second is kept alive by Rafiki’s story, the enthusiasm of little Kiara and from the gags of Timon and Pumba, who played the role of funny disturbers so as not to remain in the constant seriousness.
…sometimes too fast
Mufasa’s origins prove to be totally new and explore his fears, his destiny, his struggles, his relationship with Taka (the future Scar) and other supporting characters and his rise as King. The screenplay was edited and represented all the fundamental steps in the growth of the future Lion King, managing to entertain the entire time, despite already knowing the ending. In some moments, however, it seems that we are in a hurry to get to the point and therefore, like a lion that runs fast to capture its prey, in the pace of the film we perceive too much haste in showing some narrative elements, of which we have seen a slight superficiality and where a bit of depth was missing.
However, it cannot be said that the story cannot entertain the audience, and it fits perfectly with the original one. If there had been no unwanted acceleration and in its place, a slight deepening of a few steps, it would have been almost perfect.
The technical sector, between ups and downs
As regards the technical sector, there have been great improvements compared to the 2019 Remake. Despite the commercial success, the film released five years ago had made some errors, which however were capitalized on, and important upgrades were made . Mufasa can boast good photography and good shots that bring the Circle of Life into focus, thus providing a good cinematic spectacle, on a visual level. Furthermore there is also a rather linear editing, which includes the two timelines, which intertwine in a synchronized manner.
The rather obvious upgrade that is nice to see was that of having made the animals much more expressive, sometimes bordering on cartoonish, but also more dancers and more alive in the songs and choreographies, elements that were rather contextualised and never cumbersome. However, the technical sector is far from perfect and has also taken some steps backwards: for example, some flaws in the CGI and direction.
We can see that Barry Jenkins found himself a little disoriented when he left his “comfort zone” (from films like “Moonlight”) and did not find himself very comfortable directing this animated film, unlike Jon Favreau who put his all into it in 2019. However, if you are careful, you can also detect subtle political references and this is part of Jenkins’ style.
The characters and the dubbing
The protagonists of the film are more or less almost all well characterized and you can see the relationships that are created between them, but the lack of in-depth analysis of some narrative passages sometimes makes the sudden change in these relationships unclear. Even the growth of Mufasa himself lacks some slight in-depth analysis, and his existential doubts and fears are not noticed that much, which he then overcomes over the course of the film to reach the predictable and well-known ending.
As for the dubbing, made up of returns from those who worked on the previous film and new entries, it is rather fluctuating and includes those who proved convincing and those who, however, were not the best. Luca Marinelli, being his first experience as a voice actor, proved himself capable of providing the voice of the young Mufasa, but the same cannot be said of Elodie (Sarabi). We’ll see in the future whether she still needs to learn or whether it’s not for her, because it was actually the first time for her too.
Those who were most convincing were the returns, primarily Edoardo Leo and Stefano Fresi who, with the lending of their voices to the cute Timon and Pumba, entered so much into the characters, that it seems like we are seeing cute animalistic versions of themselves. From what little we have heard, Marco Mengoni and Elisa also did well in the dubbing of Simba and Nala.
Even if it’s not perfect and some elements could have been more daring, Mufasa – The Lion King is still a good film to see for adults and children alike this Christmas season, and manages to maintain the spirit of the franchise, sending some great messages for everyone, who will find it graceful, capable of entertaining and exciting.
