Film Roundup 19/12/2024

Hello, and welcome to this week’s Film Roundup! Next Thursday I will be wallowing in front of the telly and stuffing myself with leftover turkey, so this week’s roundup will also be covering films released on Boxing Day and 27 December. Coming up: royal lions, musical chimps and speedy hedgehogs…

Usual disclaimer: unless otherwise stated, I haven’t seen these films. All of my opinions are based on trailers, early reviews and other rumours and buzz.

Mufasa: The Lion King

In this sequel/prequel to the 2019 ‘live action’ (CGI) remake of the 1994 classic, Rafiki (John Kani) tells Simba’s daughter Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter) the story of how her grandfather Mufasa (Aaron Pierre) met Taki (Kelvin Harrison Jr), the lion who would go on to become Scar, and started the kingdom of Pride Rock.

I have quite mixed feelings about this one. The original (2D) Lion King is one of my all time favourite films. It was a staple of my childhood, to the point where even now I could probably recite most of the lines from memory – I love the music (both the Elton John/ Tim Rice numbers and the Hans Zimmer score), I love the characters (especially Rafiki), I love the story (Hamlet. It’s Hamlet), and I love the animation style (which evokes the vibrancy and colour of traditional African art whilst retaining the expressive appeal of a Disney movie). The Circle of Life sequence has to be one of the greatest opening scenes to any film ever. I also have a lot of love for the straight-to-video sequel Simba’s Pride, which introduced the character of Kiara and revealed that some of the lions had remained loyal to Scar – a piece of the mythology that always intrigued me, as it implied that he hadn’t been as atrocious a ruler as the first film suggested.

The 2019 (CGI) remake should have had all the ingredients to repeat the magic of the original. It had a fantastic cast, all the same music, and the animation is gorgeously realistic – I loved the CGI Jungle Book. But it didn’t quite work for me. The animation was actually too realistic, making the characters a lot less appealing (not to mention making it feel weird when they started singing) and losing the African tribal aesthetic that set the tone of the original so beautifully. And I wasn’t a fan of Chiwetel Ejiofor’s take on Scar, which was a lot less camp and snarky than Jeremy Irons’ performance. I suspect though that my biggest problem with it was that it was trying too hard to follow the original, which forced me to draw comparisons that the remake was always going to fall short on.

As a new and original story, Mufasa does not have that problem. However, it does have the same photorealistic animation, so it will still look stunning until any of the characters start speaking. The new songs were written by the brilliant Lin Manuel Miranda, but this is one of the few cases where I’m not sure that was a great decision. Miranda excels at fast-paced dynamic lyrics, which are going to make the animation pitfalls even more glaring. The director is the Oscar-winning Barry Jenkins, creator of Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk, who’s one of the biggest champions of Black stories at the cinema working today and should be a good choice for a film set in Africa with a predominantly Black cast. But again it still feels like an odd pick – there’s a maturity to his work that is at odds with the cartoony silliness that should come with a Disney animation aimed at kids (the original film’s Pumbaa was the first character ever to fart in a Disney movie).

What concerns me most of all though is that they’ve played with the mythology of Mufasa and Scar. An early exchange in the Lion King (1994) has Scar say “I was first in line, until the little hairball was born”. That implies that lion monarchy follows the same rules of succession as a human monarchy – ie a first-born son is first in line for inheritance but if there is no son then the rule would pass to the brother. This concept provides Scar’s motivation which in turn drives the events of the movie – as the younger brother, he has always lived in Mufasa’s shadow which has bred jealousy and resentment because he wants the throne. It also implies that this is a well-established tradition going back generations, which is echoed in Mufasa’s speech to Simba about the great kings of the past watching over them. But the new Mufasa film retcons that and has Mufasa being essentially adopted into a pride where Taka/Scar was already a prince, before they break away and start their own kingdom from scratch (bringing them into conflict with a villainous group of white lions led by Mads Mikkelsen’s Kiros). Mufasa ends up in charge not by right of inheritance, but because that is the society that he and Taka create for themselves, which undermines both Scar’s jealous ambitions for the throne and Mufasa’s heirloom wisdom from the kings of the past. It also goes against the original film’s themes of nature playing out in cycles – the Circle of Life sounds a lot less grand when you know that it only began with the current generation.

Hopefully the writers have given it more thought than I’m giving them credit for – perhaps Scar’s resentment actually comes from the fact that he, as Taka, stood to inherit his original pride before Mufasa came along and persuaded him to give it all up. But that almost makes Mufasa the bad guy, which I don’t think is what they’re shooting for here. I’m definitely going to give this a go and will try to reserve judgement until I’ve seen it, but my expectations aren’t as high as they should be for a film that, on paper, should be well up my street.

As a final mention – a few weeks ago, I lamented that the marketing team for the upcoming Lilo & Stitch movie missed an opportunity to have Stitch gatecrash the Mufasa trailers like the original 2D one popped up in trailers for the classic Disney ’90s musicals. Said marketing team are obviously Geeky Brummie fans, because they have now corrected that oversight…

• Mufasa: The Lion King on IMDB
• Mufasa: The Lion King on Rotten Tomatoes

Sonic the Hedgehog 3

I haven’t seen any of the earlier Sonic the Hedgehog films (unless you count Ugly Sonic’s cameo in the Rescue Rangers movie), so my judgement here isn’t clouded by my nostalgia for what came before it in the same way as Mufasa. The plot here sees Sonic (Ben Schwartz) and his friends Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey) and Knuckles (Idris Elba) go up against Shadow the Hedgehog (Keanu Reeves). To beat him they’ll have to team up with archnemesis Dr Ivo Robotnik (Jim Carrey) – but Shadow has the support of Robotnik’s grandfather Gerald Robotnik. Which collection of speedy rodents and mad scientists will come out on top?

I am aware that the other Sonic films have quite a devoted fanbase – the impression I get is that they’re entertaining enough as action movies for kids, but aren’t as funny as they think they are and don’t have all that much going on below the surface. This looks like more of the same, with jokes built around things like Jim Carrey in prosthetics. Reeves is great casting as Shadow – he’s in full brooding mode, and the few lines he gets in the trailer capture the confident disdain of someone who knows he’s better than everyone else and has better things to be doing than having to deal with them. Knuckles was introduced in the second film in a similar way before he was won over to Team Sonic by the end of the film – I’m hoping Shadow’s story has a more interesting conclusion, because there is a long list of Sonic characters and if they’re each going to get a film where they are brought in as a baddie and become a goody by the end, it’s going to be a long and predictable franchise.

If you enjoyed the first two films then I’m sure you will enjoy this one too.

• Sonic the Hedgehog 3 on IMDB
• Sonic the Hedgehog 3 on Rotten Tomatoes

Better Man

If Mufasa is a film that I should love on paper but I have some doubts about, Better Man is the exact opposite. It’s a musical biopic, which is a genre I’m not normally that fussed about, about Robbie Williams, whose life and I have very little interest in, in which he is played by a CGI ape. And that’s where it gets a bit more interesting. Although it felt a bit gimmicky at first, everything I see about this makes me more excited for it.

The film is directed by Michael Gracey, who is best known for creating The Greatest Showman. Although it had some critics (mostly regarding its glorification of P.T. Barnum, a man whose semi-portrayal in A Bug’s Life as a selfish parasite with no concern for the safety of his colleagues was probably a lot closer to the real person), it was phenomenally successful as a musical in its own right. There was a time when you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing This Is Me, an anthem to individuality which clearly struck a chord with a lot of people. Gracey is a friend of Williams, and apparently recorded a series of interviews with him to get him talking about his life – what he said in those interviews inspired the film (especially the feeling of being dragged on stage to perform like a monkey), and excerpts from it are used in the narration. The fact that this narrative is drawn from a guy chatting candidly to his mate, instead of having been written to work on a big screen, means that the result will be genuine and personal in a way that other biopics struggle with.

It also sounds like they’ve done a good job of weaving Robbie’s back catalogue into the plot, with some big song and dance numbers that frame the film more as a musical (like Rocket Man did with Elton John) than a music biopic (like, say, Bohemian Rhapsody). Gracey has good form with this, and what I’ve seen of those numbers look great – they’ve released a short clip of Rock DJ being performed on Regent Street in London, and the choreography is as energetic and slick as anything in the West End.

Having just moaned about how hard it is to feel any emotional attachment to singing photorealistic CGI animals, Better Man shows that it can be done. Chimps are much more expressive than lions and meerkats, with faces that very closely mirror a human face, so there’s a lot more scope for showing emotion and inspiring a connection with the audience. Baby chimp Robbie is very cute, and when he looks upset you feel sad for him. And you simply wouldn’t get that if you were just looking at Robbie Williams.

This is getting some really positive reviews and I’m predicting this will be a big surprise hit.

• Better Man on IMDB
• Better Man on Rotten Tomatoes

The Order

Finally this week, we have The Order. There are no dancing CGI animals here. Based on a true story, this follows FBI agent Terry Husk (Jude Law, moustache) as he investigates a series of robberies in 1980s Northwest America that he suspects are the work of an organised group of white supremacist domestic terrorists seeking to fund something big.

This looks pretty awesome. Jude Law makes for a very likeable cop (the moustache helps, somehow), while Nicholas Hoult looks genuinely quite chilling as the face of the Order. It’s the kind of threat that feels very close to home, and the trailer does a good job of selling the sense of something bubbling up behind the scenes – you can imagine this happening in America now, especially given its currently divided and divisive politics. The preacher openly telling Husk that he considers the US government a cult is sinister, but somehow also feels like the kind of exasperating conversation many Americans are having with their conspiracy theorist acquaintances. These are people you can’t really argue with, who have dangerously paranoid ideas about the state of the world, and in this film they are armed and organised. It’s a scary thought.

This is getting great reviews and I am thoroughly looking forward to it.

• The Order on IMDB
• The Order on Rotten Tomatoes

If you only see one film this week…

Excellent though The Order looks, this week is all about CGI animals and, against all odds, I think I’ve got to go with Better Man. I’m as surprised as you are.

Still in cinemas and worth a watch

• The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim – A very entertaining film that works both as a Lord of the Rings movie and an anime. For Tolkien fans, it does a great job of evoking the Peter Jackson films despite the change in medium, with musical cues borrowed from Howard Shore’s score and backdrops that almost look like photographs of the New Zealand landscape. For anime fans, the story lends itself well to the kinds of exciting action sequences and larger than life characters that anime excels in. The heroine Hera is an effective protagonist, and as I mentioned in last week’s roundup it’s great to have a female character taking centre stage in a Rings movie. A sizeable portion of the film is given over to the siege of Helm’s Deep (simply called The Hornburg at that point) which teeters on the edge of feeling like a retread of the (much more exciting) siege in The Two Towers, but it has enough original elements to make it work.
• Queer
• Conclave

Trailer of the week

Ever since Jason Momoa hung up his trident in last year’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, the DCEU has been cocooned away while James Gunn fashioned it into something new, and today we’ve had our first glimpse of the red and blue butterfly getting ready to emerge. Superman is coming, and it looks excellent. It opens with David Corenswet’s Clark Kent crashing to earth looking considerably worse for wear, before some epic rock guitars chime in with John Williams’s iconic theme music. We get glimpses of more familiar faces, including Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult, clearly on a villainous streak), Green Lantern (Gunn stalwart Nathan Fillion, sporting an impressively bad haircut), Lois Lane (The Marvellous Mrs Maisel’s Rachel Brosnahan), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced, fresh from giving birth in Alien: Romulus), and, immediately stealing the show, Krypto the Wonder Dog. We also see fire-breathing kaiju, falling buildings, icy explosions, and all sorts of other threats that Supes will have to deal with. This is a promising start to the new DCU, and it’ll be exciting to see what the full film looks like when it’s released in July.