Review of The Jungle Book (2016) by Paul J — 09 Oct 2017

Better than I was expecting, and the casting for Baloo (Bill Murray) and King Louie (Christopher Walken) were absolutely perfect, and it's another example that the only good movies from 2016 had Idris Ilba in them. The story was a great tribute to both the original Kipling material and the 1967 Disney Animation material, while still updating it in an unexpected, yet fitting, direction.

But it's hard to not get taken clean out of the moment at times, particularly when Shere Khan is on screen, due to unusually subpar (compared to literally everything else in the same scene) texture and rigging at times. Having the same animation crew and a heavy overlap in animation and technical staff with Zootopia, it's not hard to see where their focus was during production, and it was on Zootopia. Also felt a bit like a tech demo for the upcoming Lion King movie, particularly during the stampede scene.