Review of The Jungle Book (2016) by Silverscreen91 — 21 Apr 2016

I was never a big fan of the original Jungle Book. I found it very boring, with only the songs being anything memorable. That said, Disney’s live action remake of their classic movie was, at the very least, a wonderfully entertaining film.

As you probably guessed, it follows the story from the animated film almost to the letter. There are several changes, a few things watered down, completely left out (no hippie vultures here), or their purpose in the film altered. It’s more engaging to watch, but the pacing seems a little off. Some points are glanced over and others are focused on for some time, though honestly that’s a minor nitpick. I will say that the action in the movie really made it much more interesting. In the original, there was hardly any action at all. If you took out the King Louie bit and climax, it was a very mellow film. So having the additional action scenes really helped.

I was worried that the celebrity voice acting would be distracting. Thankfully, I was wrong…for the most part. the majority of characters voiced by celebrities fit just fine. I especially loved Ben Kingsley’s Bagheera and Scarlet Johansson’s Kaa. In the case of Bill Murray as Baloo, however, it was bizarrely distracting. It’s ironic because I thought Murray would be the best casting choice, but each time he spoke it seemed out of place for some reason. I think it’s mostly because he spoke more like a city dwelling con artist than he did a jungle dwelling animal. A comparison made even more obvious if you see this film shortly after seeing the character Nick Wilde in Zootopia. That said, the issue may be more with the writing than the actor himself.

I will say that one of the biggest improvements from the original film is Neel Sethi’s performance as Mowgli. In the original, I always saw Mowgli as being a bland, typical child character. He was just an observer of the jungle, his personality defined by the situation that he was in. Mowgli in this movie was a much more defined character. He’s a man-cub with a surprisingly intellectual and curious mind that wants nothing more than to continue living in the jungle that he’s been raised in, preferably with the family that helped him grow. Now it can be argued that Mowgli’s character didn’t really grow or change much throughout the movie, but I think his character didn’t need it since several of the other characters have their own developments instead.

The other major concern I had with this movie was the fact that it’s live action and nearly 100% of the animals in it are CGI. I was seriously worried that they would look completely and utterly fake. Once again, I was gratefully mistaken. The CGI on the animals is fantastic. It’s not perfect and I would have preferred a few more practical effects to make them more realistic, but at the very least I can totally believe that they’re in the same scene as Sethi is, which is more than can be said for films like Jurassic World. All that said, however, there is absolutely no purpose in seeing this movie in 3D. The film doesn’t benefit from it at all. It’s a shame because, with most of it done in CGI, you’d think they would take advantage of it. But no, there is literally one, just ONE brief scene where the 3D works for the film, and it’s just a stupid jump scare. Don’t bother paying the extra bucks on the glasses.

The biggest pitfall that this movie has is the songs, or lack thereof. Don’t get me wrong, they do appear, but they’re handled in a very unpolished fashion. Bear Necessities, while getting a whole scene to it and sung well, is boiled down to just Mowgli and Baloo chilling while singing it. It’s kind of boring. Wanna be Like You was just odd in its presentation in the film, especially when you hear the fantastic rendition that they play over the end credits. Trust in Me and the Elephant March songs don’t appear in the movie at all. The first is just referenced with a line and only sung over the end credits while the second is completely removed (thought, to be fair, it was removed for a very understandable reason once you see the film). I hope we get these songs properly in an extended edition, because they do sound good.

The story is good though it has a slight pacing problem, helped a lot through the additional action sequences. Almost all of the characters fit perfectly in the film, with the main character being a really great improvement on the original. The CGI is just amazing. It’s an overall great film that I totally recommend seeing it in theaters…in 2D.