Review of The Jungle Book (1967) by Paul M — 26 Jan 2011

By the time the quintessential Baloo the Bear appears on screen, The Jungle Book is 25% over. By the time any of the characters come remotely close to articulating the moral of the story, I had lost any interest in the proceedings.

With each scene a thinly veiled reason to engage in wildly inconsistent musical numbers and a story flimsier than tissue paper, The Jungle Book suffers from a hodge podge of elements that never coalesce into a cohesive whole.

While The Bare Necessities is a crowd pleaser, "I Wanna Be Like You" apparently takes its inspiration from druggie mannerisms (watch King Louie in various segments of the number) and nothing else really stands out.

I'm not even sure this is average Disney. In conversations about Disney films, how often does The Jungle Book come up in the top ten...or top twenty? Not often, I think. And that's because it is a collection of scenes someone hoped would form a coherent story.

Problem is not enough time is devoted to the "big bad" to actually make him a big bad, the moral gets lost and the "savage" wolf characters in the beginning are nothing more than pussy cats scared of Shere Khan.

Now, they should be standing up for a member of their family. Instead they pawn him off on someone else. What kind of moral is that?