Review #1,072: 'The Jungle Book' (2016)

Disney's animated version of Rudyard Kipling's collection of works The Jungle Book was released just one year after Walt Disney's death, and kick-started a period of mediocrity for the company that produced some of the most beloved films of all time (until its reemergence as a powerhouse once again in 1989 with The Little Mermaid). They now dominate the marketplace, and it would be easy to despise the multi-billion dollar corporation if much of their recent output just wasn't so good. While they are certainly progressive and forward-thinking (Zootopia was a fascinating social study of our times), they continue to hark back to their Golden Age with live-action versions of Sleeping Beauty (2014's Maleficent) and Cinderella (2015), and now one of their most adored works, The Jungle Book.

Jon Favreau's re-imagining of Wolfgang Reitherman's classic follows much of the original's narrative. Mowgli the "man-cub" (Neel Sethi) is a young boy living in the jungle, raised in a wolf pack and watched over by the wise and respected panther Bagheera (Ben Kingsley). The arrival of Shere Khan (Idris Elba), a terrifying Bengal tiger with a hatred of man, alerts Bagheera, who whisks Mowgli off into the deep jungle, where the youngster befriends lazy and care-free sloth bear Baloo (Bill Murray). Encountering many dangers along the way, including the hypnotic anaconda Kaa (Scarlett Johnansson) and giant orangutan King Louie (Christopher Walken), Mowgli must decide whether or not his place remains with the friends who raised him, or with his own kind.

While it's hardly Christopher Nolan territory, Favreau's version of the story is certainly darker. Rather than trying to replicate the upbeat tone of the original, it cuts out the majority of the songs and keeps things more grounded, or at least as much as a film featuring talking animals can be. It achieves this with some simply astonishing effects - so good that it's easy to forget or even tell you're watching CGI - and pitch-perfect voice acting. Elba will no doubt terrify any young viewers, and understandably so, but the film belongs to Murray and Walken. They get the two songs in the film (The Bare Necessities and I Wanna Be Like You) and are easily the most memorable characters. Phil Harris and Louise Prima would have surely approved.

Yet the question hovering above the head of Jon Favreau's The Jungle Book, as it does with many remakes, is the reason for its existence. The 1967 version charmed youngsters for decades so is this a pointless attempt to bring the story to a new generation of children? Have children become so spoiled with computer generated effects that they would be unable to see the charm and wonder in something so painstakingly and thoughtfully hand-drawn? It's a depressing thought, and one that bothered me for a while after seeing the film. With any hope, this will inspire kids to seek out the original and love it for all that it is, for Favreau's film is exciting and often astonishing to look at, and certainly the best of Disney's recent live action re-dos.


Directed by: Jon Favreau
Starring: Neel Sethi, Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba, Lupita Nyong'o, Scarlett Johansson, Giancarlo Esposito, Christopher Walken
Country: UK/USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie