"The Jungle Book" Review

The Jungle Book is a family adventure film released by Walt Disney Studios, directed by Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Elf), and starring the voices of Bill Murray, Idris Elba, Ben Kingsley, Lupita Nyong'o, Christopher Walken, Scarlett Johansson, and probably some others. If you somehow don't know the story of The Jungle Book, the film is the seven hundredth adaptation of the series of books written by Rudyard Kipling, and specifically based on the 1967 Disney animated musical film of the same name. This is a movie I was not excited for. Live-action adaptations of successful animated classics generally turn out to be somewhere between shit and mediocre, and this one very easily can look like a soulless CGI-infested cash-in. While this movie is in fact CGI-infested, and in all seriousness with all the artistic evaluation fluff stripped away is probably also a soulless cash-in, The Jungle Book was seriously and happily surprising. It's not an absolute masterpiece, but it will most likely go down as a classic, which is some pretty seriously high praise. I wouldn't be surprised if this film becomes the definitive Jungle Book for this generation of children viewers - and indeed, I do find it on par or better than the 60s classic. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The most obvious and most impressive element of this film is the visuals. Mowgli (played by first-time actor Neel Sethi) is literally the only live action thing in the entire film, with the whole jungle environment and animals being computer generated. Sounds like a recipe for a disaster, right? After all, the complete surrounding of live actors with sterile green-screen environments was one of the most glaring issues with the Star Wars prequels, as well as one of the biggest reasons for the general emotional disconnect in those films. The Jungle Book more than anything shows the magnitude of difference a good and talented director can make. Besides some scenes where Sethi's eyes wander and his reactions are slightly wooden (most likely accredited to this being his first acting gig), and some of the smaller, more cartoonishly-moving animals, the computer imagery integrates Mowgli into its world pretty amazingly seamlessly.

We've seen wonderful use of motion capture for CGI animals in Matt Reeves's Planet of the Apes

trilogy (it just hit me how weird it is that Andy Serkis wasn't involved with this project - even though he's currently directing his own Jungle Book adaptation), but in terms of using computer imagery to create a living, breathing world and creatures, The Jungle Book is Disney's Avatar. The jungles of India come to life in the animation, and Bill Pope's photography is gorgeous. Nearly every frame of The Jungle Book is like a painting, to such an extent that I had a hard time narrowing down two or three pictures to include in this post to properly showcase this film's visual vibrancy. The action sequences are genuinely frightening but also a lot of fun to watch, and most of this is due to John Debney's score, which beautifully entwines the classic themes from the 1967 film. Speaking of music, two songs from the original (the two you remember) are in this film, and one of them is more jarring than charming just given the context, but it's all in the name of silly fun and is, all things considered, not entirely distracting.

All right, so the animals all look awesome, but they gotta sound good too - and they do! The voice cast in this film was an absolute delight, particularly Murray, Kingsley, Elba, and Walken - which I realize is like half the cast and probably a good 60% of the lines spoken in the film, but what can I say? They all stood out to me. Bill Murray is very likable as Baloo and regularly steals the scenes he's in and delivering the bulk of the funny lines in the film. In the 1967 film he's a kind of deadbeat con man character, but in this he's more of a Winnie the Pooh - he's kinda selfish and lazy, but in a very likable and non-malicious way. Kingsley helms the voice of Bagheera very well, somehow selling the umpteenth "stern protector" role without seeming trite and boring. Elba kills it as Shere Khan. If I had Idris Elba's voice, I would just talk to myself all the time. Shere Khan is appropriately threatening, significantly more directly than in the 1967 version. And finally, Christopher Walken closes out the second act as King Louie in my favorite scene in the entire movie, being at once goofy and delightfully threatening.

Okay, but how's the story? Well, luckily, Rudyard Kipling's stories are pretty hard to fuck up, and this film actually does them quite a bit of justice, as well as the 1967 Disney film. I think the approach here was incredibly smart - the film takes the best and most interesting elements of the original books and the original animated film, mixing the fresh and familiar to the make this adaptation simultaneously nostalgic and refreshing. The darker elements of the Kipling books are present here, to the point that a parent friend I have actually thought that the movie was PG-13 when she saw it, as well as all the charming fun elements from the Disney classic. Favreau finds the perfect medium.

The film is mostly devoid of any compelling subtext or narrative undertones, which is understandable given that this film basically succeeds on its impressive visuals and fun tone, but it does have some hints of interesting themes regarding man's contact with nature. The film uses fire, referred to as the "red flower" by the animal cast, as the symbol for man's evolution beyond, and therefore ability for presumably oppressive control over, animals, and it makes for an interesting dynamic, though the film does slightly muddle its symbolism a bit during the climax. That, and I will say, like any film primarily targeted toward younger audiences, not all of the jokes quite hit, particularly one involving exfoliating that just seemed odd. These are pretty minor quibbles though.

Overall, The Jungle Book is yet another surprising and very entertaining offering from Disney. I mean, Christ, they are killing it lately. Inside Out, The Force Awakens, Zootopia, this, and Civil War looks like it'll at least be pretty good - I think it's safe to say Disney is on a bit of a roll. Anyway, I flipped between a B+ and an A- for this movie, but I'm gonna downplay it until I catch it a second time. Don't be a mistaken though; this review is a fairly enthusiastic recommendation. It's nothing groundbreaking story-wise, but the voice cast is fantastic, the visuals are absolutely amazing, and it's a short, fun, and involving adventure film that bursts with energy and life, and is sure to become sincerely well-regarded. If you're considering seeing it at all, see it in a theater. It's a good time.

Grade: B+