Film Reviews: Disney tells the backstory of an icon in Mufasa: The ...

The Lion King (1994) aimed to recreate Hamlet on the savannah, but Mufasa: The Lion King (G) has more modest ambitions. 

Billed as a ‘photorealistic animation’, the film serves as a prequel and sequel to the 2019 remake, and opens with the young cub Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter, daughter of Beyoncé and Jay Z) being told the story of her grandfather, Mufasa (voiced by Aaron Pierre), and how he came to be the King of the Pridelands. 

Narrated by the wise old mandrill Rafiki (John Kani), the tale begins with the cub Mufasa being swept away from his ancestral lands in a flash-flood. 

Finally washing ashore, he is taken in by another pride of lions led by Obasi (Lennie James), whereupon he meets Taka (Kelvin Harrison Jnr), a lion cub who is nowhere as brave and noble as the prince and heir to the kingdom should be... 

Mads Mikkelsen in Mufasa: The Lion King.

Barry Jenkins’s film is an entertaining action-adventure featuring a considerable number of narrow escapes (from elephant stampedes, murderous albino lions and avalanches, to name but a few) as Mufasa and Taka, along with the romantic interest Sarabi (Tiffany Boone), navigate their epic quest to ‘go beyond the light’ to the sunlit uplands of the paradisical Milele. 

It takes a few scenes to become fully accustomed to the talking and singing lions, but once the characters are established the photorealistic animation is for the most part persuasive. 

The same can’t be said for the songs, unfortunately, with no one stand-out track to get the audience humming along, which is something of a disappointment given that Lin-Manuel Miranda is on songwriting duties; meanwhile, the conceit of regularly returning to the elderly Rafiki as he tells his tale, this in order to shoehorn in the wisecracking Pumbaa (Seth Rogen) and Timon (Billy Eichner), only serves to interrupt the story’s momentum. 

Indeed, it’s the younger Rafiki (Kagiso Lediga), an exiled prophet whom Mufasa and Taka encounter on their travels, who steals the show with his Zen-like understanding of the circle of life. 

(theatrical release)

Sonic the Hedgehog 3, starring Keanu Reeves as 2000s edgelord counterpart Shadow the Hedgehog Sonic the Hedgehog 3  ★★☆☆☆ Cinemas

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (PG) opens with Sonic’s dark alter-ego Shadow the Hedgehog (voiced by Keanu Reeves) escaping from prison after being confined for 50 years, which isn’t great news for humanity given that Sonic (Ben Schwartz) himself has ‘the power to trigger a global cataclysmic event’ and Shadow has plans to wipe out the entire planet, aided and abetted by the extravagantly moustachioed Ivo Robotnik (Jim Carrey) and Ivo’s grandfather Gerald (also Carrey). 

Can Sonic and his pals Knuckles (Idris Elba) and Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessy) save the world? 

Shadow is the embodiment of ‘chaos energy’ here, and he pretty much represents the film as a whole: there’s a huge amount of energy expended in high-speed chases, collisions and explosions, but it’s all rather chaotic in terms of the storytelling, and surprisingly flat overall. 

Jim Carrey wolfs down whole chunks of the scenery as the dastardly villain(s), but it’s likely that only very young viewers will be entertained.