Went to see the new “live action” Jungle Book, the remake of the Disney version of the classic novels. I put quotes around live action since, really, is it live action if the only thing that isn’t animated is the the kid?
Regardless of that, this is a good movie. It has some problems but largely it’s a success (surprisingly so). There’s real drama, suspense, and humor in the movie and I certainly wasn’t expecting it.
For the first twenty minutes or so, I thought this was going to be the dark and gritty reboot of the Disney film… There’s a lot of scary moments and suspense as Shere Khan (the tiger, voiced fiercely by Idris Elba) stalks and threatens Mowgli and his wolf family. It’s dark and gloomy and then Kaa the snake shows up and boy is that a dark (but brief) scene. But then the tone lightens up suddenly…. right about the time when Baloo shows up (voiced to perfection by Bill Murray). It becomes fun, funny, and sweet in a con-artisty way.
The movie basically follows the plot of the Disney film. Most of the plot points are hit… Shere Khan, Kaa the snake, Louis the orangutan, etc. In fact, arguably one of the flaws in the movie is the devotion to that earlier movie since, personally, I always found that flick directionless and shambling (that is to say, boring)… you could cut out a lot of the encounters and not have missed much plot. Same goes here, though since some of those sequences are shorter, they don’t drag the movie down as much. Partly that’s because they ejected most of the songs.
There are two songs though… The Bare Necessities (of course) and the one King Louis sings. King Louis is voiced – and sung – by Christopher Walken and I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or just hugely distracting. On the plus side, some of that vaguely unsettling “is this racist? I think it’s racist.” feeling you get from the 1967 Disney version these days is gone (partly by casting Walken, partly just by ejecting the jazz/scat out of the song).
However, there is one glaring problem and I feel like a heel for saying it. I don’t think the kid playing Mowgli is very good. He doesn’t have a huge number of lines but he kind of botches almost all of them… and, on top of that, sounds waaay too modern American in his line readings (I’m not complaining about accent but tone). I suspect he was directed this way so maybe it’s not his fault… but I kind of was cringing any time he talked. Thankfully, most of the animals and their much better, more seasoned voice actors had the majority of the dialog.
Speaking of those animals and the effects in general, they really knocked it out of the park. It’s a great looking movie that I figured must have been partially filmed on location in some jungle but apparently not. And the animals look good and my initial worry their lip-syncing wouldn’t look natural was unfounded. Their animal movement styles were also dead on.
So, yeah, this is largely a good movie in that it is reasonably exciting, scary, and fun. It does get a little shaggy with its plot and, ahem, the little boy isn’t the best actor but the rest of the cast is so net positive there, I guess.
Now, excuse me, while I go somewhere and beat myself about the face and the head for being mean to a child actor. :-p
Score: 84