'Jungle Book' A Review

Jungle Book is a family adventure movie based on the 1967 animated classic. A boy Mowgli(Neel Sethi) is found in the jungle by panther Bagheera(Ben Kingsley) and taken to be raised by a wolf pack. A drought brings the return of tiger Shere Khan(Idris Elba) who threatens Mowgli's life as he does not belong. Mowgli leaves his pack and encounters numerous celebrity voiced animals before returning to confront the usurping tiger.

Sethi does an admirable job considering he is an inexperienced child actor forced to act basically alone on a blue sound stage. Due to the artificial nature of the environment his performance can't help but come off as inauthentic, he seems to be a doing an impression of the animated Mowgli from the Disney original without any of the charm or chemistry. The vocal performances from the super-star-studded cast are almost unilaterally uninspired save for Elba's Shere Khan the cast gives little effort. You can almost hear them reading. Not to mention most of them basically use their normal, clearly recognizable, celebratory voices which is distracting.

Visually the movie is stunning. Life like animals and rich jungle landscapes but there is something discordant and odd about it all given the one and only actual human in the middle of it. But despite it's stunning composition it lacks any semblance of heart. It feels like, what it is, a copy of a copy of a copy. The prevailing feeling your left with is a desire to revisit the animated film.

Lacking the joy of the animated original and the adventure and thrill of the 1994 live-action incarnation. Passable.

Rent It.