‘The Jungle Book’ is a Technical Marvel Missing Some Magic

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Rating: 3.5/5.0

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.

“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.

Neel Sehti as Mowgli in ‘The Jungle Book’
Photo credit: Walt Disney Studios

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.

The animals are all extremely realistic, and a high water mark for talking animal stories. However, this Jungle Book suffers from the same problem as Disney’s previous animated Jungle Book. This version of Mowgli’s just not a terribly interesting protagonist, and he’s the only “real” person in the whole movie.

The rest of the cast is a cavalcade of celebrities voicing talking animals, with many of them amounting to essentially one scene cameos – including Lupita Nyong’o, Scarlett Johansson, and the late Gary Shandling. Bill Murray’s crafty bear Baloo gets a bulk of the screen time, although the song “Bare Necessities” – the animated version’s best – gets a half hearted, tossed off rendition here. Christopher Walken gets in on the act to play the king of the primates King Louie – but here he’s reimagined as a gigantic ape and shot in shadows in a scene that is more reminiscent of “Apocalypse Now” than a Disney movie aimed at 6 year olds.

King Louie in ‘The Jungle Book’
Photo credit: Walt Disney Studios

The film takes a slightly more environmentally take on the material this time around, with the forces of man proving to be the greatest danger the jungle faces. But while we’re supposed to be cheering on Mowgli, the film seems to be backhandedly legitimizing Shere Khan’s warnings about the “man cub” in their midst.

The film has some intense sequences but nothing most kids couldn’t handle. My 4 year-old twins gave the film a mixed review. My son thought the scenes with Shere Khan were a bit scary, but my daughter kept her eyes glued to the screen. They both liked the wolf pack that raised Mowgli the best, they liked Baloo but they were split on King Louie. My daughter liked the giant ape, while my son could do without him. Christopher Walken can be an acquired taste, I suppose, especially with his clipped and off-kilter rendition of “I Want To Be Like You,” which unfortunately won’t make anyone forget about the original.

By SPIKE WALTERS Contributor HollywoodChicago.com spike@hollywoodchicago.com