“Mufasa” is marginally better than the 2019 film because it moves with the energy of something that is its own rather than an imitation of an earlier film, but it still feels like a whimper more than a roar.

| Apr 13, 2025

The circle of life flatlines in this mundane, redundant Lion King prequel which sacrifices charm, heart, and comedy in the pursuit of vanguard visuals.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 21, 2025

My enthusiasm for Mufasa was initially low, and it’s only waned with further pondering of its ones-and-zeroes visual non-wizardry and borderline-pointless story.

| Mar 10, 2025

The prequel to one of the most aesthetically barren major films of the last ten years was always going to have a pretty hard time being anything but aesthetically barren in its own right.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Feb 13, 2025

Uninspired and unnecessary.

| Feb 11, 2025

It swings back and forth tonally very awkwardly, but there are some thrilling moments and it is Barry Jenkins' usual cinematographer, James Laxton, so it is quite lovely at times. But I wish Jenkins would take his artistry where it is his.

| Feb 11, 2025

Jenkins’ treatment of this story, though he cannot rescue it from middling songs and segments that read as obvious IP management, is alternately sweeping and meditative.

| Feb 7, 2025

Please, PLEASE stop making entire sequels, prequels, remakes and reboots to 'address' things that only YouTube video essayists ever (sort-of) cared about a decade ago.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Feb 3, 2025

...a welcoming tribute to Disney's very own animation roots, now with digitally generated photorealistic images. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 5/4 | Feb 1, 2025

If someone of Jenkins’s pedigree can’t, with all this budgetary power behind him, best some poster on Elon Musk’s X typing “lions fight on mountaintop epic” into Sora, then Hollywood is truly cooked.

| Jan 31, 2025

The story is filled with romance and adventures on high cliffs, mountains, in caves, and in a far, fair land. It is in a form called photo realistic animation. It doesn't exactly look real, but it is close, thanks to state of the art digital animation.

| Original Score: C+ | Jan 31, 2025

The greatest winner here is Mufasa, a character long-lamented yet underutilized in its previous iterations. Given the time and space to develop his character, this entry is successful in all aspects.

| Jan 30, 2025

...the biggest letdown of the film is that it just brushes through the characters without exploring the emotional dynamics and depth. Barry Jenkins’ Mufasa is enjoyable but nowhere close to The Lion King.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 21, 2025

If John Favreau had the Herculean task of bringing to tangible life the 1994 animated classic in The Lion King (2019), Barry Jenkins also does a fine job of giving Mufasa his own past, fears, journey, and value system.

| Jan 21, 2025

The script is safe and unoriginal, the voice talent is passable and while the scenes of the creatures racing through fields and prancing through canyons are fine, the drama peaks in the water bodies and on snow-capped mountains.

| Jan 15, 2025

The Hindi dub of Mufasa: The Lion King, at first flush, represents an improbable marriage. But it is one that is made in heaven.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 15, 2025

I'm not a fan of these live action updates, but I really did like this one.

| Original Score: B | Jan 15, 2025

This addition to the Lion King franchise maintains a more than satisfactory standard in all its aspects, but at the same time it feels quite artificial and calculated. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 14, 2025

Between its dazzling landscapes and dreamy close-ups, Mufasa is a fitfully stylish, stirring addition to the legacy of one of Disney's crowning glories.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 14, 2025

Barry Jenkins took this behemoth and it didn't entirely defeat him.

| Jan 14, 2025