Mufasa stumbles, Sonic races ahead

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, December 20th.

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Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: what’s happening in theaters.

It wasn’t long ago that PG-13 superhero movies ruled the box office. But this year family-friendly movies have proven to be the big winners. Four of the top five released this year carried a milder PG. And this weekend two more highly anticipated family movies arrive in theaters.

EICHER: Here’s arts and culture editor Collin Garbarino on Mufasa: The Lion King and Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

COLLIN GARBARINO: This weekend, Disney returns to the pride lands with a prequel to The Lion King, telling the story of how Mufasa came to rule everything he could see from Pride Rock.

Let’s not call the 2019 version of The Lion King a live-action remake—maybe photorealistic works better. Regardless, it wasn’t a hit with critics who complained it didn’t break new ground. Fans, on the other hand, didn’t care, and the movie set records grossing 1.6 billion dollars world wide. This prequel breaks plenty of new ground, but I’m not sure I like the direction it takes.

MUFASA: Why are you following us?

SARABI: I was hoping to find my pride.

MUFASA: What happened to them?

SARABI: The outsiders happened.

In this story, the young Mufasa doesn’t come from a kingly family… In fact, he loses his family at the beginning of the movie. The lost lion cub is then adopted by another pride, gaining a new brother Taka who we all know will grow up to be the wicked Scar. But then Mufasa’s new family is attacked by a group of killer lions bent on conquering everything they come across.

MUFASA: Back to the trees.

TAKA: We’re trapped. We have to swim.

MUFASA: No! We have to fight.

TAKA: If we fight we die.

MUFASA: But if we swim we drown.

The two brothers embark on a quest to find a new home beyond the horizon where the circle of life is respected.

To be honest, I’m not a fan of this twist that makes Mufasa an adopted brother of Scar and makes both of them immigrants to the pride lands. It doesn’t jibe with some of the dialogue from the earlier films. And it doesn’t fit the original’s Hamlet-on-the-Serengeti feel.

Hamilton fans will be interested to know that Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote a half dozen original songs for this prequel. A few of them are quite good.

MUSIC: [I Always Wanted a Brother]

Some, however, fall flat due to weak vocal performances. Mads Mikkelsen, who plays the evil lion king pursuing Mufasa and Taka, is especially painful to listen to.

And speaking of these evil lions, they’re all white. Could that be some kind of commentary on European colonialism? I’m not sure.

RAFIKI: Sometimes, when the people most like you don’t love you, it is the hurt that can cause the greatest pain. And this pain can lead you to hate everything.

Mufasa offers muddled thinking on the nature of evil, and really just about everything else. The movie turns the circle of life into respecting others rather than dying and being born. It also takes swipes at patriarchy, and the youthful Mufasa seems dedicated to democracy rather than monarchy. But, you know, he still ends up being the lion king.

I guess the film’s OK, but it doesn’t really know what it’s about, and it somehow still manages to get a little preachy at the end.

However, the other big movie of the weekend definitely understood the assignment.

Sonic, voiced by Ben Schwartz, in a scene from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Associated Press / Paramount Pictures and Sega of America, Inc.

SONIC: Is this a race?

TAILS: You’re going down.

KNUCKLES: It is my destiny to claim the role of family champion, hedgehog.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 reunites the speedster from Sega’s video game franchise with his trusty friends Knuckles and Tails, along with their adopted human parents played by James Marsden and Tika Sumpter.

Earth is being threatened by a new super powered alien, and this one looks suspiciously like Sonic himself.

SONIC: Are you guys seeing this?

TAILS: He looks just like you.

KNUCKLES: Impossible.

SHADOW: You’re a colorful bunch.

SONIC: Uh. Excuse me. Why do you look like me?

Keanu Reeves voices Shadow, a teleporting hedgehog who can unleash enough chaos energy to destroy the planet.

SONIC: We don’t want to fight you.

KNUCKLES: Actually, Sonic, I would like to fight.

Jim Carrey also returns as Dr. Ivo Robotnik. Carrey’s over the top performance defines the film. If you like his brand of humor you’ll love Sonic 3, but if you don’t, you’ll want to steer clear since he gets about twice as much screen time as anyone else—partially due to his playing two members of the Robotnik family.

DOCTOR ROBOTNIK: It’s impossible.

GRANDPA ROBOTNIK: Is it?

DOCTOR ROBOTNIK: It couldn’t be.

GRANDPA ROBOTNIK: Couldn’t it?

DOCTOR ROBOTNIK: I’m…

GRANDPA ROBOTNIK: Are you?

This film is just 110 minutes of zany fast-paced adventure in which an adolescent blue hedgehog continually cracks jokes and makes pop culture references. It doesn’t gesture at any grand themes, other than the typical kids’ movie lesson that family and friends are important and that, if you can, you should try to save the world from utter destruction.

SHADOW: This ends now.

But of course, Sonic’s race won’t end with this film. An end credits scene introduces another colorful friend who will launch Sonic and the gang into their next fast-paced adventure.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

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