The Jungle Book
Grade: B+
Starring Neel Sethi as Mowgli, and Featuring the Voices of:
Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba, Lupita Nyong’o, Christopher Walken and
Scarlett Johansson
Premise: Raised in the jungle by wolves, young human Mowgli
tries to adjust as his increasing maturity makes many of the animals around him
view him as a threat.
Rated PG (contains some intense action and sad/scary
moments)
The Disney machine marches on, pumping out another souped-up
live action film that is basically a carbon copy of one of its classic animated
features from the ‘60s. Last year it was Cinderella.
The year before that—Sleeping Beauty (the
2014 spin-off Maleficent). A couple
years before that it was Snow White (the
2012 version was called Mirror Mirror).
Before that it was Alice in Wonderland.
Now, it’s The Jungle Book. There will
be haters. There will be cynics saying it’s a complete cash-grab. There will be
the lukewarm (“it was okay, but the
original’s better in my book”). And then there will be the hundreds of millions
of dollars in tickets sold. The Disney machine marches on, basically printing
its own money as it goes.
Hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Also, if you can
slam-dunk a film everyone from parents with kids to grown adults hanging out
with their friends will go see that has brilliant visuals, an A-list voice
cast, a slight improvement in weighty story and plenty of well-played pushes of
the nostalgia button, why not do it? And besides, it is nice to see movies
filled with grownups and made for everyone that are brightly-colored,
entirely-sincere, and effectively wholesome. This version of The Jungle Book—largely an on-the-nose
remake of the 1967 version that landed “The Bare Necessities” in the Disney
music canon—isn’t quite as
well-rounded and emotionally-affecting a production as last year’s Cinderella, but it’s still an
entertaining, impressive, and likeable motion picture.
Plot
Pre-teen Mowgli (Indian-American newcomer Neel Sethi) has
only known the jungle. While he was, of course, born in some “man village”, he
was stranded as a baby in the jungle. At that time he obtained an unlikely
guardian in the panther Bagheera (voice of Ben Kinglsey), who took him to a
pack of protective wolves to be raised as one of their own. However, when a
devastating drought strikes the region, it brings all the jungle’s inhabitants
together at the last remaining watering hole. Some are surprised to see a “man
cub” among their numbers. Some are curious. Some are slightly offended. And one
tiger—Shere Khan (voice of Idris Elba)—is furious. Having been previously
hunted and scarred by humans, Shere Khan vows to maintain the jungle’s
peacetime drought laws, but breathes threats against the wolves, implying they
better hand over Mowgli when the rains finally come, or else. When the rains do
come, Mowgli, not wanting anyone to get hurt on his account, runs away from the
pack and, in a terrible storm, gets lost and ends up in a deep, unfamiliar
region of the jungle.
It’s there that he’s saved from danger and boredom by Baloo
(voice of Bill Murray), a giant sloth bear who’s easy going but has a
mischievous twinkle in his eye. It’s Baloo who encourages Mowgli to embrace the
innovative ideas that come with his natural human heritage. It’s Baloo who
shows Mowgli the “man village” from a distance but doesn’t try to guilt or
force him to go. It’s Baloo who rescues Mowgli from a pack of wild monkeys. And
Baloo may very well turn out to be Mowgli’s biggest ally against Shere Khan.
What Works?
It’s funny that The
Jungle Book’s director, Jon Favreau, will always first come to my mind thanks
to his guest stint on the sitcom Friends,
because, as a movie director, he has already helmed a pair of bonafide classics—the
2008 superhero origin story Iron Man
and Will Ferrell’s breakthrough 2003 comedy Elf.
Now, as was the case with Cinderella last
year (directed by Academy Award-nominee Kenneth Branagh), Disney has brought on
a classy director to give a classic Disney tale a little oomph. Favreau’s film
is quite similar to the 1967 cartoon version, but it avoids the same beginning
and the same ending, and leaves out a few of the cheesier characters (the militarized
elephants, the Beatles-inspired vulture pack). Not to mention it’s framed with
classical book graphics meant to remind us that Disney didn’t make up the “Jungle
Book” concept, it’s based on the 1894 novel by Rudyard Kipling. Most of what’s
onscreen is obviously animated, but Favreau manages to hit most of the right
notes in making the scary moments scary, the touching ones touching, the fun
ones fun, and the exciting ones exciting. As far as nostalgia goes, it will
impossible for anyone who’s seen the animated version to not look forward to
certain scenes and characters, or to appreciate how certain aspects have been
updated thanks to the increases in imagination and animation. And for Disney
supergeeks (like me), there’s ample playing of the two most enduring songs from
the ’67 version, with one almost guaranteed to be stuck in your head as you
leave (it was in mine).
In the only major live-action role, 12-year-old Neel Sethi
struggles here and there with being more than a stubborn, bratty kid, but he
has a megawatt smile and, ultimately, proves an effective and likeable screen
presence. He also seems completely comfortable interacting with and emoting off
characters who aren’t really there. The venerated voice cast does solid work. Scarlett
Johansson and Lupita Nyong’o have both lent their voices to high-profile
projects before (the former to Her, the
latter to Star Wars: The Force Awakens),
and Idris Elba reps his second major voice-only role in as many months after
his role as the grumpy police captain in Zootopia
(that character seems positively cuddly compared to his gnarly take on Shere
Khan). Ben Kingsley has exactly the right sound and manner for Bagheera, and Christopher
Walken’s appearance—compared with some terrifically-creepy animation—is brilliant,
but Bill Murray walks off with the show. Baloo—played here as warm and
understanding but also snarky and tricky—is perfectly suited to Murray ’s style and sound,
and the actor does some of his most effective work in years. Murray ’s droll energy gives Jungle Book the extra entertainment
quality it needs to be more than just a competent rendition.
What Doesn’t Work?
The fact that this Jungle
Book is almost an exact recreation of the 1967 Jungle Book is both a blessing and a curse. Obviously, they’ve
updated a few things, and its mood and look and style are more akin to today’s
movies, but this movie, as mentioned, doesn’t quite match the overall quality
of last year’s stellar Cinderella, which effectively added more dimension to its familiar characters and story elements while still remaining simple and likeable. Jungle Book starts to drag a little bit
in the middle, right before Murray ’s
Baloo shows up and livens things up. Like I said, they’ve nixed a few of the
goofier parts of the original here, and they end on a nicely-appropriate note
rather than tripping over themselves to match the exact same ending as the
earlier movie. I don’t have many complaints; this is a solid movie, just a
little too obviously familiar.
Content
As a PG, Jungle Book
has a lot of intense scenes including Baloo and Bagheera taking on swarms of
attacking monkeys, Mowgli getting squeezed by a giant python that has designs
on eating him, and, of course, Shere Khan having a few different scary
smackdowns with beloved characters. There’s little in the way of gory details,
of course, but when the claws and fangs come out, things will be intense for
younger kids.
Bottom Line
Is the new souped-up Jungle
Book a cash grab as well as pretty much an exact recreation of a beloved
Disney classic (from 1967) done up again with better animation? Yep. Does that
make it bad? No. I actually quite enjoyed it. For me, it’s left out a few of
the goofier elements of the old movie, really well-cast all the major parts, is
led by a tough and likeable kid in newcomer Neel Sethi (as Mowgli), and ends on
an appropriately-satisfying note that is different from the cartoon version. And
the animation’s incredible. Plus, this movie all but sticks the two best songs
from the original movie down your throat. Hey, you could do worse, right? With
me, everyone: “Look for the/bare necessities/the simple bare necessities/forget
about your worries and your strife…”
The Jungle Book (2016)
Directed by Jon Favreau
Screenplay by Justin Marks
Based on the book by Rudyard Kipling and the film The Jungle Book (1967) directed by
Wolfgang Reitherman
Rated PG
Length: 105 minutes
