Review of The Jungle Book (2016) by Lane Z — 09 Jan 2017

Right off the top, The Jungle Book is a visually-stunning, CGI-infused masterpiece. It should set a standard for future films in the industry that are interested in following the same lines as this one did. So while the eye is trained on marveling at the wonderful graphics like the ruffles of feathers or individual strands of hair or oddly accurate mouth movement for the animals who speak, all that together makes for one expensive show.

At just over 90 minutes, The Jungle Book is a short-lived wonder. Most of our time is spent with Neel Sethi as Mowgli while he traverses the jungle on two feet while his "brethren" paw around on all fours. It really is like watching an animated movie come to life. His interaction with each beast, whether it's hugging or stroking or bumping into, makes you wonder if he really did this with actual animals! The short run time also keeps us from fully developing certain characters from the books like Kaa (Scarlett Johansson) or King Louie (Christopher Walken), but we get a ton of fun with Baloo (Bill Murray), Bagheera (Ben Kingsley) and one of the best animal/human villains, Shere Khan (Idris Elba).

The Jungle Book has opened up a new phase of remakes in Hollywood. We'll see classics like The Lion King, Mulan and others roll into this 'live-action' genre soon enough, but if they can match what The Jungle Book did aesthetically pound for pound, we'll be in for a treat.