After a threat from the tiger Shere Khan forces him
to flee the jungle, a man-cub named Mowgli embarks on a journey of self
discovery with the help of panther, Bagheera, and free spirited bear,
Baloo.
Director:
Jon Favreau
Movie Storyline
The man-cub Mowgli flees the jungle after a threat from the tiger Shere Khan. Guided by Bagheera the panther and the bear Baloo, Mowgli embarks on a journey of self-discovery, though he also meets creatures who don't have his best interests at heart.Movie User Reviews
OK
first things first: I know that 'The Jungle Book' is a kid's film. I
just argue that this does not elevate it above criticism, especially in
light of the near-universal acclaim it is receiving (from adults).
Now, the problems inherent in 'The Jungle Book' start in the previous paragraph, as when I said "kid's film" I didn't mean a kid's film which can be understood on multiple levels and that might even sneak in the odd rude joke for the dads to chuckle at before getting an elbow to the ribs from mum and that is at the end of the day a good film for anyone of any age, which is also what you'd expect a film as lauded as this one to be. I mean it's a kid's film for kids that talks down to kids and that it will bore bright kids and anyone else.
Perhaps I should start with what I liked about this film. Or at least the things I acknowledge were good. By which I mean the special effects were very good. I didn't dwell on them, truth be told. It hasn't been the 90's for a while now. But the special effects were there, and they were good. I actually did like Idris Elba's voice work as the vindictive tiger Shere Khan, along with Ben Kingsley's contributions as Bagheera (a kindly, if strict panther). The film was pretty much always pretty, but that's hardly difficult to achieve when you're filming panthers and wolves and peacocks in a lush jungle and have $175,000,000 to get it right.
Right, on to where this box office hit went wrong: Mowgli, or more specifically Neel Sethi's performance, has come under criticism, some of which is justified. It is true that this boy is not the finest actor ever to grace the big screen, but to be fair he is a child and what little talent he did have was hardly helped to flourish by the fact that he probably spent most of his time acting in front of a green screen. What killed Mowgli for me was that this boy was supposed to have been raised by wolves.
It takes several years to make a feature film from start to finish, and this was no exception. So hold that thought when I say that I would not expect most people I meet to have seriously thought about how a child who had been raised by wolves would act, or to have read any accounts of the Midnapore wolf girls or others. I might however expect that people making a film about a child who was raised by wolves, and getting paid handsomely to do so, to have done some research along these lines. And the fact that Mowgli here seems to be more of a young middle-class US-born parkour enthusiast who lost his way leaves one word resonating loudly in the forefront of my mind.
That word is "lazy".
He is a wolf child with no conscious memory of his human family. Couldn't he have taken on at least a few lupine traits? I know why he had to wear a loincloth, I'm not so pedantic as to forget this is a kid's film. For that same reason I know that we can't see him licking himself no matter how hilarious it would have been, but could he not have sniffed the new things he found? Like, even a little bit? Could we not have seen at the start of even a single scene that he was gnawing a bone or actually playing in a puppy-like way with his adoptive siblings? Apparently not. All we got was a couple of howls, and those could be pretty shaky. This kid is from urban America and doesn't even try to hide it.
This made for an almost complete disconnect between myself and Mowgli (and pretty much any other characters on the screen). I didn't care for his perils or for his increasingly implausible solutions.
Indeed, Mowgli also seems to be the proud owner of numerous Cub Scout merit badges, as he has an ingrained knowledge rope making and knot tying, at one point masterminding basic engineering and constructing a harness and pulley system on what appeared for all the world to be his first attempt.
At this point I felt more like I was watching George of the Jungle, only with all the funny bits removed. Tedious would be an appropriate adjective for the experience. Then I was watching King Kong, because King Louie (large extinct primate species known as Gigantopithecus blacki, voice of Christopher Walken) was freaking huge. Distractingly so, and I don't even care if this species actually did exist at one point. Besides, I don't remember there being a giant orangutan in 'The Jungle Book' before this version.
And the worst thing? Not only is 'The Jungle Book' so tedious and patronising as to only possibly appeal to little children, it is also too violent to be watched by little children without adult supervision. So it's not even a suitable babysitter film.
But hey, maybe the already confirmed sequel will be better *sarcasm detectors throughout the world explode*
Now, the problems inherent in 'The Jungle Book' start in the previous paragraph, as when I said "kid's film" I didn't mean a kid's film which can be understood on multiple levels and that might even sneak in the odd rude joke for the dads to chuckle at before getting an elbow to the ribs from mum and that is at the end of the day a good film for anyone of any age, which is also what you'd expect a film as lauded as this one to be. I mean it's a kid's film for kids that talks down to kids and that it will bore bright kids and anyone else.
Perhaps I should start with what I liked about this film. Or at least the things I acknowledge were good. By which I mean the special effects were very good. I didn't dwell on them, truth be told. It hasn't been the 90's for a while now. But the special effects were there, and they were good. I actually did like Idris Elba's voice work as the vindictive tiger Shere Khan, along with Ben Kingsley's contributions as Bagheera (a kindly, if strict panther). The film was pretty much always pretty, but that's hardly difficult to achieve when you're filming panthers and wolves and peacocks in a lush jungle and have $175,000,000 to get it right.
Right, on to where this box office hit went wrong: Mowgli, or more specifically Neel Sethi's performance, has come under criticism, some of which is justified. It is true that this boy is not the finest actor ever to grace the big screen, but to be fair he is a child and what little talent he did have was hardly helped to flourish by the fact that he probably spent most of his time acting in front of a green screen. What killed Mowgli for me was that this boy was supposed to have been raised by wolves.
It takes several years to make a feature film from start to finish, and this was no exception. So hold that thought when I say that I would not expect most people I meet to have seriously thought about how a child who had been raised by wolves would act, or to have read any accounts of the Midnapore wolf girls or others. I might however expect that people making a film about a child who was raised by wolves, and getting paid handsomely to do so, to have done some research along these lines. And the fact that Mowgli here seems to be more of a young middle-class US-born parkour enthusiast who lost his way leaves one word resonating loudly in the forefront of my mind.
That word is "lazy".
He is a wolf child with no conscious memory of his human family. Couldn't he have taken on at least a few lupine traits? I know why he had to wear a loincloth, I'm not so pedantic as to forget this is a kid's film. For that same reason I know that we can't see him licking himself no matter how hilarious it would have been, but could he not have sniffed the new things he found? Like, even a little bit? Could we not have seen at the start of even a single scene that he was gnawing a bone or actually playing in a puppy-like way with his adoptive siblings? Apparently not. All we got was a couple of howls, and those could be pretty shaky. This kid is from urban America and doesn't even try to hide it.
This made for an almost complete disconnect between myself and Mowgli (and pretty much any other characters on the screen). I didn't care for his perils or for his increasingly implausible solutions.
Indeed, Mowgli also seems to be the proud owner of numerous Cub Scout merit badges, as he has an ingrained knowledge rope making and knot tying, at one point masterminding basic engineering and constructing a harness and pulley system on what appeared for all the world to be his first attempt.
At this point I felt more like I was watching George of the Jungle, only with all the funny bits removed. Tedious would be an appropriate adjective for the experience. Then I was watching King Kong, because King Louie (large extinct primate species known as Gigantopithecus blacki, voice of Christopher Walken) was freaking huge. Distractingly so, and I don't even care if this species actually did exist at one point. Besides, I don't remember there being a giant orangutan in 'The Jungle Book' before this version.
And the worst thing? Not only is 'The Jungle Book' so tedious and patronising as to only possibly appeal to little children, it is also too violent to be watched by little children without adult supervision. So it's not even a suitable babysitter film.
But hey, maybe the already confirmed sequel will be better *sarcasm detectors throughout the world explode*
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