FilmSnobReviews

Title: The Jungle Book
MPAA Rating: PG
Director: John Favreau
Starring: Neel Sethi, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba
Runtime: 1 hr 51 mins

What It Is: A “live action” retelling of Disneys take on Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book series. In it a young boy named Mowgli (Sethi) is raised by wolves Raksha and Akela (Lupita N’yongo and Giancarlo Esposito) in the jungle. Now as the boy grows older the dastardly human-hating cat Shere Khan (Elba) wants to make sure this boy never gets to grow into a man. His old protector Bagheera (Kingsley) the panther tries to get him to the “man village” at the end of the jungle all the while running into some familiar faces.

What We Think: First of all this film is a modern marvel of cinematic imagery. This features some of the most photo-realistic looking computer animated animals I’ve ever seen! Young Neel Sethi is the films biggest flaw. He feels as if he’s acting against basically nothing because he is. All of the vocal performances are strong! Christopher Walken as King Louie and Kingsley as Bagheera especially shine. I’m not even going to bring up Bill Murray as Baloo the bear, he’s great. This may be the future of filmmaking, and I am not against it. I don’t want it to take over everything.

Our Grade: B+, It is a flawed movie that I think doesn’t leave you as fulfilled as it’s animated counterpart. I had a thrilling time with this. It really was enjoyable and I can see where there’s room for a sequel. I’m excited to see whatever director Jon Favreau does next it should prove itself fruitful. That guy is on an absolute roll. What with the brilliance of Chef and his success in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I know everyone’s already seen it but if you haven’t you should!