Review of Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018) by Troy C — 15 Dec 2018

You go decades without seeing a Jungle Book movie then all of a sudden there are two released in close proximity. Having been beaten to release in 2016 by Disney's awesome Jungle Book, Mowgli finds itself missing out on the big screen treatment in lieu of a direct-to-Netflix release.

Unfortunately coming second (and to much less fanfare) has not done this Andy Serkis-directed version any favours. It's impossible not to compare the two films, and in almost every way this iteration falls short.

First with the good news: the CGI is every bit as spectacular as you would expect. Serkis is the Godfather of motion capture technology and performance, so it's not surprising that the photo-realistic talking animals are nothing less than utterly convincing.

He has also employed a formidable voice cast: Benedict Cumberbatch sneers gleefully as Shere Kahn, Christian Bale gives good anguish as Bagheera, Cate Blanchett hisses eerily as Kaa and Serkis himself hams it up as a roguish Baloo.

But these are arguably easy wins and don't make up for the movie's very noticeable weaknesses. The biggest of these is the casting of Rohan Chand as the titular wolf-raised child protagonist; the over-acting is unintentionally funny and he's more annoying sook than likable hero.

He's not helped by a clunky screenplay either, the dialogue is often wooden or on the noise whilst the plot mechanics churn with a ho-hum predictability that saps any interest generated from the 'fresh' perspective given to this age-old tale.

Touted as a darker take on this property, there's also a complete lack of fun to be had. The more adventurous sequences are few and far between, and there's so much doom and gloom it's hard to be invested in the odd-ball relationships that should otherwise be endearing.

Whether there was studio interference and/or a post-production tonal shuffle is unclear, but either way Mowgli limps onto Netflix in the considerably large shadow of its direct competition.