This new Jungle King is a roaring success: MATTHEW BOND reviews Mufasa: The Lion King

Mufasa: The Lion King

Cert: PG, 2hrs

Rating:

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl 

Cert: U, 1hr 19mins 

Rating:

The great James Earl Jones, best known as the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars and Mufasa in The Lion King, died three months ago at the age of 93. 

So it seems entirely fitting that Mufasa: The Lion King is not only dedicated to his memory but begins with those deep resonant tones ringing out over the African savannah for one final time. 

What a tribute this turns out to be.

Yes, the photo-realism that has replaced the old-school animation of the 1994 original still takes a bit of getting used to, particularly when Simba and the gang start to talk and sing, but we get there quicker than we did the first time Disney tried it in 2019.

This prequel-cum-sequel has pretty much everything – adventure, humour, grave danger, friendship, love and fearsome rivalry. It also has some great new songs, I hasten to add, courtesy of Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.

With Simba temporarily leaving the pride to help the heavily pregnant Nala, the narrative unfolds almost entirely in flashback, as Pumbaa the warthog (still superbly voiced by Seth Rogen) and Timon the meerkat (Billy Eichner) are put in charge of babysitting Simba and Nala’s daughter, Kiara, voiced by Blue Ivy Carter, the 12-year-old daughter of Jay-Z and Beyonce. 

With the young cub frightened by an approaching storm, Rafiki, the blue-faced mandrill and shaman (John Kani) decides to tell them all a story. It turns out to be the life-story of Mufasa, from orphaned cub to acclaimed lion king. What ensues is an epic tale of disaster, adoption and exile – and that’s just the first half-hour.

Aaron Pierre and Kelvin Harrison Jr are terrific as the voices of adoptive brothers Mufasa and Taka, I loved Lennie James and Thandiwe Newton as the king and queen of a faraway pride, and Mads Mikkelsen is splendidly terrifying as the leader of a marauding pride of albino lions.

True, we never quite discover how Mufasa got his deep bass tones but I had a lovely time discovering pretty much everything else. You will too.

For only the second time in their 35-year history, Wallace And Gromit get the full feature-film treatment with Wallace And Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, which rather delightfully turns out to be a sequel to the hugely popular 1993 film, The Wrong Trousers. 

So, if you’re a fan of Feathers McGraw, the penguin master criminal who disguises himself as a chicken by wearing a red rubber glove on his head – and who isn’t? – this is a must. And definitely worth seeing on the big screen either side of its Christmas Day screening on BBC1.

Nick Park’s trademark stop-motion animation is perhaps a little smoother than it used to be, and there aren’t quite enough cheese gags for my personal liking, but it’s lovely to have another outing with tireless inventor Wallace – now voiced by Ben Whitehead following Peter Sallis’s death in 2017 – and his canine sidekick, Gromit, whose devotion is well and truly tested by the arrival of Norbot, a domestic robot gnome.

Expect puns, film references and a particularly good canal-boat chase.