This most recent adaptation of The Jungle Book is Disney’s live action retelling of their 1967 animated classic, directed by Jon Favreau. It stars the voice talents of Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Lupita Nyong'o, Idris Elba, Christopher Walken, Scarlett Johansson and starring as the only live action character of the whole film, the young Neel Sethi as Mowgli.
The 1967 animated Jungle Book was one of my favorite movies growing up, and I could never have imagined that one day a different version of it would replace it as my favorite adaptation of the story. I cannot stress this enough… Jon Favreau’s Jungle Book is, at least to me, the definitive Jungle Book film.
The movie is about a young boy, or ‘man-cub’, named Mowgli (Neel Sethi) who was raised in the Indian Jungle by a pack of wolves. A panther named Bagheera (Ben Kingsley) watches over Mowgli as he grows up with the wolves. Everything seems to be going fine for everyone until a tiger named Shere Khan (Idris Elba) vows to kill the boy before he becomes a full grown man. In order to protect him, Bagheera promises to take Mowgli away from the jungle and to a man village. But things don’t go as planned, and the story progresses from there.
The plot is simple, and similar enough to the old animated movie to be recognizable, but different enough to keep you invested and completely enthralled. The changes they made were all good changes that helped the story flow better and added a lot more depth to the characters and the interactions between them. The cast is what really makes them shine. Bill Murray as Baloo is one of the best casting choices made by Disney in their entire history. He brings so much joy and humor to the movie, and owns his character. Idris Elba was absolutely menacing as Shere Khan. He was one of my favorite Disney villains before with the classic animation, but that version looks like a dumb kitten compared to Idris Elba’s. His voice is perfect, he has a great, intimidating presence about him, and what he does to get Mowgli was actually quite shocking. Scarlett Johansson as the snake, Kaa, was an odd casting choice, but I thought she worked pretty well.
And then we have Christopher Walken. As King Louie. Singing ‘I Wanna Be Like You’. I shouldn’t have to explain how great that was.
But the real star of the movie is the only live action character of the whole thing: Neel Sethi as Mowgli. This is Sethi’s first movie. For a child actor, and especially for his first time in a movie, he was excellent! And for a kid acting to absolutely nothing but green screens and whatever golfball they had him looking at, he was awesome! There are adult actors with years, if not decades of experience with acting that struggle when it comes to acting and reacting to nothing. But this kid does a great job, and I definitely see a future career with him.
Just to remind you, Sethi is the only live action character in the entire movie. EVERYTHING ELSE, the other animals, the jungle, the backgrounds, environments, every speck of dust, every tree, each piece of grass, nearly EVERYTHING you see is CGI. But it doesn’t look that way. Everything looks absolutely real. I almost forgot that none of this was shot in a real location. And in this current age where there are so many people who hate CGI just because it exists, there were initially a lot of complaints. People said things along the lines of “It’s so stupid! Why not go to a real jungle? CGI sucks! It’s lazy!”
Because, you know, it’d be so much better if the kid was in a real wild jungle acting with real panthers, bears, tigers, snakes and wolves. That makes so much more sense.
In reality, the computer generated world looked purely amazing. It looked real, and had that certain magical quality that only Disney can do. The computer artists put so much heart and effort and love into bringing this world and the characters in it to life, and it shows. This is on par with other CGI-heavy films like James Cameron’s Avatar. Hell, I’d say it surpasses Avatar. It’s truly a CGI wonder work.
If there ever came a time where I met Jon Favreau, I would personally thank him for making The Jungle Book. Coming from someone who grew up loving the original animated movie, this film is absolutely fantastic. The cast is perfect, the CGI is deserving of an Oscar, and the music is great. This is better than the 1967 classic. This is better than anything I could have imagined a live action Jungle Book movie to be. I love this film so much. I know I’m not writing very professionally right now (and I’m definitely writing a lot more opinionated than normal) but I really don’t care. A movie this great will do that to someone.
FINAL RATING: 50 / 50
STORY: 5 / 5
ACTING: 5 / 5
CHARACTERS: 5 / 5
CGI/SPECIAL EFFECTS: 5 / 5
ADVENTURE: 5 / 5
SOUNDTRACK: 5 / 5
TONE: 5 / 5
ENJOYABILITY: 5 / 5
REWATCH VALUE: 5 / 5
OWNING VALUE: 5 / 5
The Jungle Book is a great experience for people of almost any age. I say ‘almost’ because there are parts in this movie that can be a little too scary for the really young kids. It’s nothing bloody or gory, but it’s enough to scare them a bit. I know this because I saw this with my nieces, and the youngest was frightened when certain things happened. Just a fair warning.
It's my one of the favorite film...
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