This prequel to a re-make “never picks up momentum” – “Don’t the talented artists involved have anything better to do with their time?”

When the CEO of Disney announced in February that the studio would start relying more on “sequels and franchises”, he wasn’t joking. Already this year, we’ve had Inside Out 2 and Moana 2, and now we have Mufasa: The Lion King, a prequel to 2019’s photorealistic remake of 1994’s much-loved cartoon.

Yes, we’re talking about a prequel to a remake. And, yes, it’s as pointless as that description makes it sound. This contrived cash-in may be worth sitting through on Disney+ if you’re a Lion King superfan, but, like so many prequels, it devotes tremendous amounts of thought and energy to answering questions that nobody was asking in the first place. When did Simba’s dad Mufasa meet his wife Sarabi? Where did Rafiki the mandrill get his walking stick? How did Zazu the hornbill become Mufasa’s right-hand man (or, I suppose, right-paw bird)? The film is directed by Barry Jenkins, who made the Oscar-winning Moonlight, and the songs are by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the most feted Hollywood and Broadway songwriter of his generation, so a more pressing question might be: don’t the supremely talented artists involved have anything better to do with their time?