“Mufasa” and “Sonic 3” show the good and bad of kids’ entertainment

One is heads and Tails – and Knuckles – better than the other.

And, we’re back.

I hope you all had a great holiday season. My break was much-needed and very relaxing. This is the longest I’ve taken a hiatus from writing in ages, and those muscles still feel a bit stiff. So, I’m going to try to ease in over the next week or two, writing about some things I caught up with during my break.

It seems good to start with something recent. We’re coming off a very strong Christmas season at the box office. While I enjoyed Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, I didn’t have it being a surprise mainstream hit on my box office BINGO card. Wicked, which I liked, continues to pull in good numbers; so does Moana 2, a movie I liked much, much less. I’m not surprised to find James Mangold’s Bob Dylan film A Complete Unknown doing good business – it’s a well-made movie, and adult audiences love a musical biopic. For the first time in several years, the holiday weekend feels back to normal – not dominated by one piece of IP like an Avatar or Spider-Man movie, but by many films doing robust business.

Of course, that doesn’t mean IP is sitting it out. Moana 2 and Wicked are both based on popular pre-existing properties. And the box office is being dominated by two kids’ films that are following up on highly successful predecessors. Over the break, I needed to get the kids out of the house for a day while my wife worked from home. And so we took in a double feature of Mufasa: The Lion King and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which have been duking it out for box office supremacy over the Christmas holiday (Sonic took the golden rings Christmas weekend; Mufasa was king of the jungle this weekend). I definitely think one works better than the other and says a great deal about what kids want versus what studios think families need.

A fun bit of trivia is that, due to the COVID pandemic, Jeff Fowler’s Sonic the Hedgehog was the only theatrical release I saw in 2020. If I’d had known I would only step into theaters once that year, I probably would have chosen something different. But my son wanted to see it and, having had a SEGA Genesis in my youth, I had some nostalgic fondness for the speedy blue fur ball. I harbored no delusions that it would be great, but I walked out pleasantly surprised. Ben Schwartz and James Marsden had sweet chemistry together, the film zipped and never tip-toed into annoyance, and Jim Carrey gave his most engaged comedic performance in years. It wasn’t art, but it was, as I said, probably the best movie you could make about a fast blue rodent who collected coins. A few years later, we saw the sequel; I don’t have many memories of it except that I felt it was just as fine, maintaining its energy and heart.

Nearly five years after Sonic’s first big-screen adventure, it hasn’t leapt into greatness, but it remains consistent. My kids loved this and I didn’t feel like I spent two hours with my head stuck in a pinball machine. Fowler understands the right balance of videogame mayhem and charming family comedy, and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 manages to be perhaps the most enjoyable of the series.

The film finds Sonic now living comfortably with his found family, which includes adoptive parents Tom and Maddie (Marsden and Tika Sumpter) as well as his fellow dimensional exiles, a fox named Tails and a echidna named Knuckles. Their low-key life is disrupted when the military asks the Sonic team to investigate another mysterious magic hedgehog wreaking havoc in Japan. This is Shadow (Keanu Reeves), a dark version of Sonic with dangerous powers and a tragic past. And the only thing more dangerous than Shadow running rampant is him being controlled by the elderly doctor who wants to control his powers – and who is also the grandfather of the previous film’s villain, Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey returns and plays both roles).

My experience with Sonic spanned only the first and second games – aside from Sonic, Tails and Robotnik, I didn’t go into these movies knowing much of its backstory. To be honest, I was surprised it had any backstory, let alone anything resembling lore. But my kids filled me in on an entire mythology filled with the owls who raised Sonic (?), a sprawling story of underground movements and alliances, and friendships lost to violence. It is, admittedly, a lot for what I’d always just accepted as a side-scrolling, ring-collecting adventure.

At heart, the Sonic movies are for children – the nods to the games will please fans, but they don’t overwhelm the story. My kids cheered when Shadow showed up in the post-credits scene of Sonic 2 – they also cheered when this film’s mid-credits scene teased new characters for a fourth adventure. But Shadow isn’t an Easter egg in need of decoding – his past as a misunderstood threat and the loss of his only friend is doled out in the story, and adds a surprising tenderness to the saga. And Fowler understands how to treat the character seriously without miring the story in treacle or creating a “gritty” movie about Sonic the Hedgehog.

While I enjoy Marsden’s comedic energy in these movies, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 benefits by relegating (most of) the humans to the sidelines. Marsden and Sumpter show up occasionally to help Team Sonic, but the film largely keeps Sonic, Tails and Knuckles at the center. Schwartz continues to voice Sonic with a youthful exuberance that never crosses over into aggravating, and Idris Elba is fun as the big-egoed tough-guy Knuckles. Colleen O’ Shaugnessey gives Tails – the tech nerd of the group – a sunny and nerdy disposition, and the three characters have the back-and-forth dynamics of a Saturday morning cartoon. Shadow’s personality could be too serious for the film’s good, but Reeves brings vulnerability and dignity. The action sequences are colorful and fun, and the film zips along well enough to keep kids engaged and let adults enjoy the energy.

And, as with its predecessors, Sonic 3’s secret weapon is Jim Carrey stealing the film as Dr. Robotnik/Eggman. He seems particularly engaged playing both the main baddie and his grandfather, and I appreciate that he never phones in these performances. Robotnik’s pop culture quips, exaggerated reactions and motormouth ramblings are always very weird and often very funny, a kid-friendly Dr. Evil. My kids are still too young for Dumb and Dumber or Liar Liar (and the longer we hide Ace Ventura from them, the better), but this is a nice way to give them a taste of what I thought was hilarious when I was young.

Sonic 3 isn’t great – it is, after all, still a movie about a blue rodent running fast and smashing robots. But I continue to be surprised how energetic and likable the franchise is, and I admit that it hasn’t yet succumbed to a desire for bigness and universe-building that seems to sink all modern series. If my kids’ reactions are anything to go on, Sonic and his friends could be doing this for a long time.

I thought about Sonic the Hedgehog a bit when watching Mufasa, the prequel to The Lion King. The first Sonic film famously caused a controversy among fans when its trailer showcased a hedgehog who looked nothing like the big-eyed, cuddly creature from the video games. He was decidedly off-putting, with a narrow face, weird eyes and – perhaps most egregious of all – human teeth. It caused such an uproar that Paramount pushed back the film’s release to redesign the character, a decision that might have cost them time but likely saved the franchise.

It was a lesson that when it comes to CGI characters, likability trumps realism. Yes, the original Sonic design might have been more “realistic” – a really silly thing to say about a movie involving a blue, cross-dimensional hedgehog – but it wasn’t endearing or likable. In fact, Disney itself would later nudge that character in the ribs by featuring “Ugly Sonic” in Chip n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers (a movie that is so much better than it has any right to be).

But for Disney to make fun of “Ugly Sonic” is high hypocrisy, as the studio’s mantra for its live-action remakes seems to be “do what looked good in 2D animation, but with the hideousness of real life.” And so we get Aladdin without the manic cartoon pliability of Robin Williams and a Beauty and the Beast that takes place in a dim, muddy castle and whose musical numbers lack the energy of the Oscar-nominated original. Most egregious was Favreau’s Lion King remake, a nearly shot-for-shot karaoke retelling that replaced the vibrant animation with expressionless, photorealistic animals. It was dull, ugly and lacked any sense of originality or genuine emotion. It also earned $1 billion, so what the hell do I know?¹

There’s no need for a prequel – or a sequel – to The Lion King except for profit. But a little-known secret is that Disney likes money. And so, we have Mufasa: The Lion King, which tells how Simba’s father became the king of Pride Rock and how Rafiki got a stick.

I’ll admit that while I loathe the 2019 film – and have a soft spot for the 1995 animated original – the participation of Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk director Barry Jenkins had me slightly interested. Perhaps he found something in the story that resonated with him, and maybe he would bring his knack for creating beautiful visuals to the film. The reveal that Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda was penning the songs further made me wonder whether this might be a secretly great movie. Miranda’s work with the songs for Moana and Encanto elevated those movies to classics.

But, no. Mufasa: The Lion King is a waste of great talent that lacks any sense of passion or personality. While there are occasionally a few striking images, they’re in service of a wooden retread of the original film, and the advances in photorealistic CGI still can’t compensate for the fact that animals can’t emote.

The film tells the story of how Mufasa, a lion cub estranged from his family, is taken in by a pride of lions and forms a brotherly bond with Takka, who is cunning but lacks Mufasa’s bravery and integrity. The two – along with a young Sarabi, baboon Rafiki, and dodo Zazu – set out to escape a pack of vicious lions and find the land that Simba’s parents were attempting to get to. The film occasionally flits back to modern day, where Rafiki tells the story to Simba’s cub as well as warthog Pumbaa and meerkat Timon so that it can have an excuse to put Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner’s names on the poster (John Oliver either chose not to return or was asked not to because of his use of a public domain Mickey Mouse on Last Week Tonight; either way, he’s the winner).

The story is a painfully slow and humorless slog that positions Mufasa as the chosen leader of the tribe and Takka as a coward who is unworthy of the throne (and yes, Takka is Scar; the film is so obvious that there’s a running joke that Pumbaa is the only character who doesn’t know where the story is heading). There are callbacks to the “circle of life,” and the film pelts viewers with Lion King Easter eggs and callbacks (when Pumbaa and Timon break into a chorus of “Hakuna Mufasa,” only the reminder that my kids were sitting nearby kept me from launching popcorn at the screen). But I just never once cared.

Part of it is the standard prequel problem – it’s obvious that Takka is Scar, and we know what becomes of Mufasa and Sarabi. It’s hard to get involved in whether they’ll survive when this is literally being framed as a story about characters whose fates we already know (what are they going to do: kill Mufasa before The Lion King does?). Jenkins seems disengaged; there’s no sense of the visual innovation or heart of Moonlight here; it’s a rote Disney fairy tale whose beats are already retreads of a remake. And the computer-generated characters provide a further barrier to emotion – it’s hard to worry about a pack of vicious lions when they look completely disinterested, and next to impossible to invest in a love triangle when you can’t tell the characters apart. If it’s better than Favreau’s Lion King, that’s only because the animation has evolved enough to where there are some impressive shots and sequences, and because this isn’t a complete Xerox of a previous movie – it’s more like someone trying to sketch something slightly new over that Xerox.

My kids were not engaged. They left once to go to the bathroom, another time to go get popcorn. They asked me questions that had nothing to do with the movie. Within 24 hours of seeing the film, my son was openly mocking Miranda’s songs, particularly an awful earworm where Mufasa and Takka sing about “my broth-ah” or the villains’ big number which repeatedly ends in an annoying “gonna make you go bye-bye” (Miranda put out a great album in 2024 with Warriors, but his Mufasa soundtrack feels like he pulled rejected Moana songs out of the garbage).

And yet, the film’s top of the heap at the box office so, once again, what do I know? But it’s easy to pacify kids with a time waster over Christmas break. The real proof of where this stands with kids will be when it hits streaming. I have no doubt my kids will enjoy repeated adventures with Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Shadow. I can almost guarantee they’ll never give Mufasa another thought.

1. It’s probably worth noting that my kids have seen all these “live action” remakes. They also know they’re all sitting right there on Disney+ alongside the animated classics. And every time they want to revisit the stories, they go for the originals, not the remakes.