by Cain Noble-Davies

Year:  2025

Director:  Barry Jenkins

Rated:  PG

Release:  19 December 2025

Distributor: Disney

Running time: 118 minutes

Worth: $15.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth

Cast:
Aaron Pierre, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Tiffany Boone, Mads Mikkelsen, Thandiwe Newton, Seth Rogen, Beyonce, Donald Glover, Billy Eichner

Intro:
… does more to enhance and enrich its predecessor than most Disney remakes, helped by its cultural framework that emphasises the importance of history and storytelling, giving its existence a purpose beyond mere copyright milking …

2019’s The Lion King may not be the worst modern Disney remake (that’d be Aladdin), nor is it the most toxic in its relation to the original (that’d be Beauty and the Beast), but only five years on, it is easily the one that has aged the worst. Its vacant facial expressions, frill-less rehash of the original story, and amateur-level staging missteps (why is ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight?’ set during the middle of the day?!) were none too impressive, but the cracks in its half-hearted nature doco presentation have only deepened and widened as more eyes have latched onto them. This isn’t helped by the existence of Black Is King, Beyonce’s film companion to her The Gift tie-in album, which is far and away a better remake than the actual remake.

It also shows that The Lion King’s ordure foundation is sturdy enough to build on with other stories, which Mufasa: The Lion King, a wraparound prequel-sequel takes proper advantage of.

Admittedly, Timon and Pumbaa’s frequent interruptions, while Rafiki tells the film’s actual story to young Kiara, give the same wrong-headed Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead vibe as their involvement in The Lion King 1½, but they are thankfully not frequent enough to impede on what makes this instalment work.

Most of the film focuses on young Mufasa (Aaron Pierre) and the lion who would be Scar Taka (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), as their respective paths lead them from being just two more cubs into the most pivotal players in the grand theatre of the Tanzanian wilderness.

Right from Mufasa’s introduction, with his parents describing the promised land of Milele, the film asserts its desire to go beyond being convincing and into being captivating. The landscape is as much a part of the story as the creatures that traverse it, enhancing the environmental storytelling of the original to convey the truly symbiotic relationship between land and life.

The screenplay struggles without the skeleton of the original to work from, as the story progression tends to meander, and the character arcs (Taka’s in particular) are rather abrupt. But when it focuses on Mufasa specifically, and how he went from an isolated stray (visualised in a sequence that speaks volumes of the psychological estrangement within the African diaspora) to the king of all beasts, the film truly blossoms.

The specifics end up feeling more in-line with the Disney remakes that aren’t The Lion King, subverting the dynastic undertones of the original to show not the royals, but the outcasts, as the ones who united the land; given a metafictional push by Rafiki’s framing narration.

Director Barry Jenkins, who has built a healthy reputation for explorations of Black identity (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk), links Mufasa with its Afrocentric sister in Black Is King to essentially reclaim the original story as part of the grander African oral tradition. Less ‘Hamlet in Africa’ and more ‘Sundiata Keita with claws’.

Mufasa: The Lion King has issues with unnecessary comic relief, wonky characterisation, and a hit-and-miss soundtrack (‘Bye Bye’ and ‘Tell Me It’s You’ should’ve been the standard, not the exception). But as a continuation and expansion of the original, it does more to enhance and enrich its predecessor than most Disney remakes, helped by its cultural framework that emphasises the importance of history and storytelling, giving its existence a purpose beyond mere copyright milking. Hadithi njoo, uongo njoo, utamu kolea!

7.5Good
score
7.5
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