Review of The Jungle Book (2016) by Kale W — 29 Nov 2016

The Jungle Book: Is a Movie That Will Captivate the Viewers Heart.

The Jungle Book remake was made in 2016 and the original animated Disney version was aired in 1967. The director of the new film was Jon Favreau. The cast's major actors for this film include Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba, and Scarlett Johansson. Neel Sethi who played Mowgli, the young boy, got his break-out role with this film. The character of Mowgli was the only human in the film since the other characters are all CGI animals. The film was full of emotion, suspense and amazing CGI effects. Everyone that was involved with this film did a superb job of making the treasured Walt Disney's 1967 version come to life. The movie's purpose was to captivate the heart of its viewers by giving a unique emotional tie to each character in a way that is different from the animated version. The movie's central analysis makes the reader ask the question of "what should humans relationship be with wild animals and how far should that relationship go?".

Mowgli was found as a boy by Bagheera (Ben Kingsley), a black panther. Bagheera takes the young boy to a group of animals, a pack of wolves, who he knows he can trust to raise the young boy. The wolves raise Mowgli as one of their own while Bagheera watches over him at a distance throughout Mowgli's life. Mowgli meets a best friend during his travels in the form of a bear named Baloo, as voiced by Bill Murray. The bear encourages Mowgli to view the jungle as a relaxing place and to understand that there is more to life than living by the rules. The movie has multiple villains that the animals in the jungle as well as the audience are afraid of. One villain was a human-hating tiger, Shere Khan (Idris Elba). He's out for vengeance against humans and once he learns about Mowgli, he decides to not rest until the boy is dead. The second villain is a python named Kaa voiced by Scarlett Johansson who uses hypnosis on her prey. The red flower (fire) serves as another villain and plays a major role in the films plot symbolizing fear and power. For example, King Louie, an orangutan, voiced by Christopher Walken desires the red flower which he thinks Mowgli has or can create. The dynamic personalities within this film provide entertaining characters that the audience is connected to.

The film starts out full of suspense and lets the audience immediately see the pretty colors of the jungle. When I watch this film, I see and feel darkness, happiness, family, friendship, fear, power, beauty, and fear of the unknown. A strength of the movie is that the director stayed true to the characters and plot in comparison to Disney's 1967 version of the film. I believe the reason why this movie is so impactful is because it brings the audience's fears to reality. A weakness of the film is that certain parts of the movie were dark and not suitable for younger audience. Why did the director decide to take this route? Some might say that younger children are becoming used to darker scenes and this movie did not seem scary.

In conclusion, this movie will leave a lasting impression on its audience leaving them wanting more. I strongly recommend this film to teenagers and adults but, depending on how young a child is, parent discretion could be advised. The CGI in this film is purely unbelievable and is enough to make any movie goer see the film. Lastly, the movie makes the reader question what human relationships with wild animals should include and how dangerous we are to their lives.