The Movie Guru: ‘Mufasa: The Lion King’ improves live action track record, while ‘Kraven the Hunter’ fails utterly
Disney/Courtesy photo
‘Mufasa: The Lion King’ (in theaters)
At least it’s better than the last one.
Though it doesn’t quite qualify as a good movie, “Mufasa: The Lion King” does manage to be a vast improvement over 2019’s live-action “Lion King” remake. The facial expressions on the characters are deeper, making them seem less like CGI puppets, the vocal performances are good, and the original story is interesting if a little too contrived at times. The new songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda are good, though not as well integrated as they could be, and the humor is welcome despite being occasionally jarring. As far as Disney live-action goes, this is top shelf.
The movie follows Mufasa and Scar (originally known as Taka) through the sometimes violent twists of their early years. There’s a strong element of tragedy, as you might expect if you know what happens in “The Lion King,” but thanks to Timon and Pumbaas inclusion in the voiceover there is some laughs to provide relief. The story runs into the same problem as a lot of prequels, feeling at times like it’s been set up solely to justify the first story, but director Barry Jenkins gives the story enough drama to help carry it over some of the weak parts.
The best part of the movie are the visuals and cinematography. While characters suffer in CGI 鈥� even the improvements here can’t compensate for the flexibility of animation 鈥� the backgrounds are all gorgeous. You’ll feel like you’re out on the African savannah, and overall it’s the most immersive part of the movie.
Grade: Two stars
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‘Kraven the Hunter’ (in theaters)
And Sony’s attempt at a Spider-Man universe without Spider-Man goes out with a fizzle.
“Kraven the Hunter,” Sony’s latest attempt to turn Marvel villains into unrecognizable anti-heroes, is yet another disappointing mess by the studio. Failing to learn the lesson provided by the “Venom” movies’ box office success 鈥� you can be as much of an incoherent mess as you want, as long as you’re fun 鈥� the movie is a grim, poorly-edited action movie that makes you feel bad for everyone trapped in it. They all deserved better than what they got, including the audience.
Completely abandoning any trace of the character’s actual backstory, the movie makes him an animal-powered anti-hero who kills unethical hunters and mobsters like his father. Little-known Marvel characters get pulled in seemingly at random, sometimes without bothering to give them very much to do. The worst case of this is Ariana DeBose, to whom the creative team owes a personal apology. The Oscar-winning actress is turned into little more than a vending machine, her natural charm utterly wasted.
A lot of things are sadly wasted in this movie. The action scenes might have been the one thing that saved the movie, but poor editing and barely-hidden green screens suck out a lot of their impact. A good portion of Fred Hechinger’s character is to set up the fact that he becomes Chameleon, a fact that becomes completely irrelevant when you have no idea who the character is. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is a good actor, in addition to having a magnificent six-pack, but with such a terrible script he’s left with only his muscles.
Sadly, it’s not enough consolation for any of us.
Grade: One half star
Jenniffer Wardell is an award-winning movie critic and member of the Denver Film Critics Society. Find her on Twitter at @wardellwriter or drop her a line at themovieguruslc@gmail.com.
