The New Lion King Is a Roaring Achievement—and a Waste

Mufasa is a musical about talking lions, which means that the quest for realism is a fundamentally misguided one.

The movie’s lions do indeed look like lions, as its trees look like trees, its waterfalls like waterfalls.

The strength of animation has never been in capturing reality but in departing from it.

The screenplay is largely built to answer questions that have been keeping no one up at night .

It suggests that if you put this massively powerful technology in the hands of a truly great filmmaker, you can end up with a perfectly watchable movie.

For a film built on sweeping notions of legacy, the future that Mufasa makes way for isn't one anyone will tell stories about.