Just as there are some movies I want to like more than I do, there are some I want to resist—pretty much anything Disney—that actually work really well.
What Works: “The Jungle Book” is one of the best big-studio movies to come out this year and that is perhaps a back-handed compliment in this year of diminishing returns, but what I loved about it is just how old-fashioned it really is. This is the sort-of big studio extravaganza Hollywood used to know how to do really well, and has all but disappeared in recent years. Sure, there’s CGI-galore, but it’s in the service of a story rather than the other way around.
“Jungle” even practices the forgotten art of building action sequences around the characters and letting their strengths or weaknesses drive the action. For example: the lethal, all-menacing tiger is a malevolent force of petty tyranny and stealth cunning, but his isolation means Mowgli can use his network of friends to outmaneuver him. In fact, Mowgli may not be the strongest or deadliest “animal” in the jungle, but his brains and friendships help him outfox pythons and tigers alike. The message that evil is isolating while goodness makes a community is a decent one for kids. And the voice cast is uniformally perfect, especially Idris Elba’s elegantly terrifying, viscerally omnipotent Shere Khan and Bill Murray’s hilarious huckster Baloo.
What Doesn’t: I had such a good time with this, who cares if the allusions to songs (especially the extended monkey sequence) are a misplaced nod to the animated version that don’t really fit into this one? Sure, no film is perfect, but this might be “The Revenant” of kid’s films: pretty damn close.
What I Would Have Done Differently: I hate sounding like a shill for Disney, and I’m not a fan of their latest Star Wars or Marvel movies. But this proves they know how to do animation or quasi-animation better than pretty much anybody else. And “Jungle Book” is miles ahead of other fairy-tale “mature adaptations” like the awful Maleficient or Huntsman.
Because I read your review, I went to see this movie.
It was as wonderful as you said it was.
Glad I got to see it.