“Mufasa: The Lion King” was one of the worst movies of 2024 and a strong contender for one of the worst prequels of all time. It completely misunderstands basic components of the characters it uses, and the story it precedes. It is quite simply one of the worst pieces of mass character assassination and retconning put to film.
The first of this movie’s many creative missteps is the design. While the CGI is undoubtedly impressive, it gives “life” to character design and art direction so soulless and unexpressive it would be impressive if it were not so sad. The biggest problem is the character designs, which sacrifice expressiveness and distinction on the altar of realism.
All of the lions, particularly the female ones, are indistinguishable from one another, and the male lions do not fare much better. Mufasa and Scar are nearly the same except for their slight color differences, a far cry from the unique and evocative designs of the animated movie.
The movie is also visually bland. While it has more color and style than the live action “Lion King” remake that preceded it, it still has cripplingly little of the vibrancy that it desperately needs. A whimsical musical about talking animals should be expressive and colorful. It should not look like a washed-out nature film.
The lack of visual style or whimsy also renders sections of the story unbelievable. For example, a significant portion of the movie is spent on a snow-capped mountain, which are not conditions that African lions can survive in. If the movie were animated, there would not be an issue, but since the movie’s art direction is so devoted to making the audience believe that it is real, this does not work.
The characters in this movie are either original and terrible or characters from the original movie,that have been thoroughly misunderstood by this movie’s creative team. Mufasa’s characterization is fine once the stupidity of a Mufasa origin story wears off and takes a turn for the worse at the end of the movie when he makes a decision that is lacking in mercy and justice and is terrible leadership. Furthermore, the decision calls into question Mufasa and Scar’s entire relationship. Scar himself is called, “Taka” in this movie before he gets his nickname.
There is not enough newspaper printed in the school year to record all of the problems this movie creates for Scar’s character in “Mufasa.” The main issue is that the movie makes the bizarre choice to have Mufasa and Scar be adoptive brothers, who do not come from a great line of kings. This is just one entry in an incredibly vast list of problems this movie creates with the canon and emotional core of “The Lion King.”
Moving on, Rafiki has his origin story in this movie and while there are no specific instances of character assassination, the movie robs him of his mystical aura and instead makes him seem like a deranged idiot. Timon and Pumbaa are played by Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen respectively, which paints a terrifying mental picture of how annoying these once universally beloved characters have become in these live-action movies, but whatever mental image is conjured up the actual thing manages to be many magnitudes worse.
This movie is a musical, and the songs in this movie do accomplish one thing: filling time. There is not a single good or memorable song in the entire film. The villain’s song is laughably unthreatening. The song young Mufasa and Scar sing is noteworthy only in that it went somewhat viral for the amusing way that the cubs pronounce “brothaaaa,” but it is not interesting for any reason other than that, much less good. Sadly, it is probably the best song in the movie.
The story in this movie is nothing of value, and not worth the words it would take to dissect.
This movie is a crime against imagination, the original “Lion King,” and its audience. This movie has nothing to entertain adults and is so flat and dull, kids certainly would not enjoy it either. Absolutely pitiful.
