Mufasa: The Lion King (2024)

"But I'm not a king… I'm just your son." 

Everyone that knows I love anything having to do with lions, having a collection of over seventy-five now and being an avid lover of anything The Lion King. Unfortunately, after seeing the first live action, I was left unimpressed and disappointed. I have to say, after seeing the prequel, I genuinely didn't hate it as much as others seem to of. 

Maybe Disney just needed to focus on the telling of an "original" story (despite there being books and backstory lore) compared to the retelling of an animated story already previously made. Regardless, I definitely think that this prequel was better than the original live action. 

There's no surprise that Lin Manuel Miranda made the songs for this, I actually turned to my Mom half-way through the movie (a huge Hamilton) fan, and said that this sounds extremely similar to the broadway show's soundtrack. While some of them are extremely cringe-worthy, I didn't think the music was half bad. 

Taka was also never a "good" brother. I can acknowledge this, still having "Scar" as my favorite character. The whole telling of Mufasa and Taka's story is that Taka only wanted a brother for himself, even explicitly stating "I always wanted a brutha," focusing on what he wanted and liking the power imbalance of rescuing Mufasa. I agree with some of the takes that Taka only wanted a "brother" from the perspective that "someone would always be on his side, no matter what" and the fact that Mufasa owed him for saving his life. As other reviwers have said, as soon as Mufasa saved Eshe and Taka cowered, the power shifted. 

Not to mention, the showing of being raised from a matriarchial aspect versus a patriarchial aspect. Obasi never taught Taka anything other than napping and leaving the "heavy work" to the lionesses; Eshe taught Mufasa how to hunt and there must be a balance. We see the ongoing benefits of being raised by the lionesses versus the detriment of being raised by the male lions throughout the film, where it's Mufasa's skills and ways of being raised that ultimately leads Sarabi to falling for Mufasa compared to Taka. 

I really loved that they included Kiara and Kion in the film, where having Blue Ivy voice Kiara was a really nice touch and Mads Mikkelsen voicing Kiros was a beautiful casting choice as the villain, even with his cringe-worthy song. I must agree with what others have said, though, all the lions are so violently British it's hard to focus on anything else at times. 

In all, I really don't think that it was as bad as a movie as people are reviewing it to be; or maybe, I was just so thoroughly disappointed with the original live action that this one exceeded my expectations after not anticipating much. 

Personal bias aside, I can understand how this was a miss, but I still stand by my opinion that it wasn't as much of a miss as the first and that Disney greatly improved this time around. Personal bias included, I love anything lions, Disney, and was entertained for the entirety of the movie. While it may not be for everyone or the average LetterBoxd watcher, I still enjoyed it and it was definitely a better use of time than going back and re-watching the original.