CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com audio review for the doc series “Charlie Hustle & the Matter of Pete Rose,” about the rise and bitter fall of the major league legend, the MLB’s all-time hits leader, only to be banned from the sport because of gambling. Streaming on MAX and on HBO since July 24th.!—break—>
Film Review: ‘The Jungle Book’ is a Technical Marvel Missing Some Magic
CHICAGO – While Disney Studios’ new live action version of “The Jungle Book” is an improvement over the 1967 animated version, it’s more of a technical marvel than magical fable. And it’s unable to completely transcend the earlier version’s limitations.
Rating: 3.5/5.0 |
“Iron Man” director Jon Favreau has created a storybook jungle almost entirely in green screen, with nary a real animal, jungle vine, or leaf in sight, but the result on screen is spectacular to look at. The jungle itself is highly stylized, but also amazingly realistic. I actually didn’t realize that none of it was authentic until I checked my production notes after I got home from the theater.
This story unfortunately sticks closer to the flawed animated musical version, which had only a passing resemblance to the original Rudyard Kipling texts. It centers on a young orphan boy Mowgli (newcomer Neel Sethi), who is left alone in the jungle and raised by a pack of wolves. He’s raised under the watchful eye of the panther Bagheera (voice of Ben Kingsley) until the Bengal Tiger Shere Khan (a perpetually sneering Idris Elba) threatens his life.
Neel Sehti as Mowgli in ‘The Jungle Book’
Photo credit: Walt Disney Studios