How did Scar, the wicked uncle from The Lion King voiced by Jeremy Irons, get to be so … well … wicked? How is it that he was only ever known by that cruel and callous nickname, while everyone else got noble-sounding multisyllabic names ending in vowels? Was he once nice, even misunderstood? And, in providing the answers, will the prequel give a clear rebuke to the now rather discredited facial-scarring-equals-evil equation? Well, the answers will show that this movie musical, like the original, is still a rather old-fashioned Kiplingesque creation at heart.
It is certainly Scar who has the important character arc and narrative journey here, so it should perhaps be his name in the title. Mufasa, originally voiced by the legendary James Earl Jones, here turns out to be a thoroughly and unsurprisingly decent character from the outset. This movie, a backstory-followup to the 1994 classic in the same photorealistic animated style as the 2019 reboot, is in fact a punchy, heartfelt and rather ingenious drama, with a fair bit of storytelling energy from screenwriter Jeff Nathanson and director Barry Jenkins.
