The Jungle Book

The Jungle Book is one of those stories that people of all ages have grown up with, whether it's the books, the original 1967 Disney animated movie or any of the other movie versions that have been released since. The latest version has come along at a time when making a live action version is possible without relying on unpredictable trained animals (like they did in the 90s.) And while there's a lot of good in this movie, there's also a lot of bad.

Mowgli (Neel Sethi) is a young boy who has grown up in the jungle. He was found by the black panther Bagheer (Sir Ben Kingsley) and raised by the wolf Raksha (Lupita Nyong'o). During a peacetime period brought on by drought, Mowgli comes under the attention of the tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba), who threatens the entire jungle unless Mowgli is turned over to him. Mowgli realises that the best thing for him to do is find his true place in the world and go to the man-village where he was originally from. Along the way, he comes across the snake Kaa (Scarlett Johannson), befriends Baloo the bear (Bill Murray) and angers King Louie (Christopher Walken).

The original Disney animated movie was very much targeted toward kids, no doubt about it. This one, I'm not so sure. Yes, the plot is pretty basic and doesn't need too much attention to follow it, but it is a really intense movie. Every time Mowgli found himself in a dangerous situation, I couldn't help but get caught up in the moment, so I can't imagine how terrifying some of it must have been for kids under ten. The way the world is presented to us is pretty ingenious. Everything seems out of proportion and way bigger than it would be in real life. That's because we're seeing the world through the eyes of a ten year old. Of course elephants will seem like the biggest things in the world. While we're on the topic of the animals, I have to mention how fantastic the visual effects are. So much research must have gone into how each individual animal species moves, because when you see them, you almost forget that they aren't even there with Neel Sethi, yet he reacts amazingly to them.

While all this is great, there are still problems. I felt like some of the characters were only included in the film because the filmmakers felt obliged to put them in there rather than serving any plot points. For me Kaa was the big one. She only appears briefly (basically all her part is in the trailer) and all we want to see from that character is the crazy eyes. The other one is King Louie. I find his character particularly problematic. He doesn't appear in any of the original books, but rather was created for the Disney animated movie. In 1967, I'm sure it was okay to have a parody of a black jazz musician in your movie, but when you've got a very obvious Christopher Walken doing a very obvious impression of a black person (blackvoice?), it goes a bit far. I know Christopher Walken loves to sing, but does he need to? That leads into the next problem. This isn't a musical like the old one, so why shoehorn in two songs. "Bare Necessities" and "I Wanna Be Like You" were the most popular songs from the original sure, but I found that breaking up the action with these songs just pointless.

Overall, the voice cast is pretty solid. Idris Elba and Ben Kingsley are amazing. Elba has a rather menacing voice as it is, but when it's coming from a tiger, well that's just terrifying. Kingsley is such a talented voice actor that you end up paying more attention to his character than the voice. And that's a problem that sticks out with the rest of the characters. The cast is so well known that they become removed from the parts they play. This is most noticeable with Bill Murray who seemed to be playing more of a version of himself than Baloo.

The Jungle Book is hanging in a weird limbo for me. I wouldn't say I particularly enjoyed it, but I wasn't bored. There was always something that was intriguing for me on screen and at times that distracted me from what was going on with the story. I also couldn't help noticing that this movie took some beats from The Lion King, which was a huge distraction.