So…two my favorite animated films of all time are The Lion King, and The Lion King 2. The music is phenomenal, as are the stories and I rewatch both of them incredibly regularly. So when I heard that Lin Manuel Miranda was doing the music for Mufasa I was extremely excited. Mufasa is another one of those “no one asked for this” kind of movies and I feel like it exists only to tell the story of how Scar got his name. But we truly didn’t need a whole movie for that, a little mystery never hurt anyone. Now the reason that the 2 main Lion King movies are so successful is not just because of the music but it is also because their stories are literally Shakespeare. The first Lion King is Hamlet, and the second is Romeo and Juliet. Every single time they have tried to expand this franchise without using Shakespeare it’s been bad. Lion King 1 ½ was an embarrassment to film, and the show on Disney Jr. is…a show. So we went into Mufasa skeptical at best.
https://vocal.media/geeks/mufasa
Overall I was beyond disappointed. It was bad. Nearly every decision they made was wrong. The music was subpar and it’s placement made it worse. The narrative was cliche and underdeveloped and it was delivered in an incredibly choppy way. I give it no more than a 4/10, it had so much potential and I’m really upset about it. Now time to watch Lion King 2 to flush this experience from my brain.
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