Review of The Jungle Book (2016) by Adam R — 22 Aug 2016

The next film in a long line of live action Disney remakes, The Jungle Book comes to us from the always reliable Jon Favreau and stars an equally dependable cast of excellent actors. First, let's just outright acknowledge the best part of the movie: the visuals. The sheer look of this movie is absolutely wonderful. Much like how Jurassic Park changed film CGI in the 90s, The Jungle Book will certainly do the same thing for the new 10s. Oftentimes, such an abundance of CGI can be a major turnoff for how artificial it feels. However, what separates this movie from something like say the Star Wars prequels is that Favreau and co didn't sacrifice story and character. All of the voice actors perform wonderfully; breathing exuberant life into their animal counterparts. Special mention goes to Bill Murray as Baloo. The relationship between he and Mowgli (also played very well by newcomer Neel Sethi) is genuine and heartfelt. You'll certainly be rooting for these two all the way. Even bizarre choices like Christopher Walken as King Louie manage to make it work if nothing else for the sheer novelty of it.

Where the film suffers is in the script. While it mostly follows the original Disney storyline very closely (don't expect it to be similar to the book), it expands on certain elements as well. The main thing being Shere Khan the tiger's motivation. While it's commendable of the filmmakers to flesh him out more, it feels fairly clichéd and doesn't make him any more sympathetic to the audience (which I believe was the intent). So ultimately it comes across as pointless. Another major issue is with the songs. It feels like the writers weren't sure if they wanted to incorporate them or not and thus they come off as half-baked renditions that are more awkward than anything else. And unfortunately the movie stops dead with each one.

Despite its problems, The Jungle Book is a solid family film and one that stands out as one of the better Disney remakes.