It’s amazing just how involving The Lion King is on stage. The lack of actual, or, indeed, believable, lions on stage matters less in this context than the ability of the actors to speak to the emotional truth of the characters they are playing. Through the abstracted masks and feathers, the circle of life lives. There’s a joke on this matter in the latter half of Mufasa, Disney’s financially viable follow up to Jon Favreau’s 2019 photoreal remake of the original 1994 Lion King. A Billy Eichner voiced Timon snarks his distaste for the show on the basis of his part being played by a sock puppet. That’s the joke. To this there is only one response. Mufasa’s Timon may look exactly the part of the meerkat he is but he hasn’t half the warmth, humour and soul of the sock.
It’s been two decades since Love Actually rewrote the Christmas movie playbook, predominantly by exhausting it. If you’ve ever wondered what an infantilisation of the interconnectivity conceit would look like, Netflix’s That Christmas has the answer. The film is Richard Curtis’ second festive offering in as many years, following 2023’s Genie, and, well, it’s fine. Colourful, innocuous, mildly diverting…pick your bland adjective and damn with faint praise at leisure.
Warmly received by kids and critics alike, Moana proved the perfect antidote to Frozen fever back in 2016. The long, icy shadow was strong but Musker and Clements’ sun kissed, Oceanic adventure provided both a brief thaw and the opportunity for parents to finally…let it go. You’re welcome. Decent box office returns didn’t immediately set the sequel train rolling, though. For all Disney’s market leading prowess in IP monetisation, follow ups have rarely been the animation studio’s modus operandi. Just three in a hundred years. It was the race for streaming content that commissioned Moana 2, though initially as a long-form limited series. Ostensibly, quality alone inspired the cinematic upgrade, although one suspects a financially disappointing 2023 played a hand. This one, at least, is going to be huge.
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