The Jungle Book. (PG.)
Directed by Jon Favreau.
Starring Neel Sethi, Featuring the voices of Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba, Scarlett Johansson and Christopher Walken. 106 mins.
Even for Disney, two talking animal films in a month seems excessive. After the animation Zootropolis, comes this live action (ish) version of Rudyard Kipling's tale. Mowgli, the young “man cub” who has been brought up by a pack of wolves after being abandoned in the jungle, is played by an unknown child actor, (Sethi), surrounded by computer generated real animals, voiced by Hollywood stars. It all looks real, but in such an intense, heightened way, that it is like something from Avatar, rather than the planet Earth.
The film sees Disney revisiting one of its great landmarks – the animated 1967 film which was the last one overseen by Walt himself – with a mixture of apology and defiance. It's a beloved classic, of course, though notorious for being a travesty of the Kipling original and the dated jazzy hep cat characterisations. I suspect a lot of the love for it is really more for the songs than the film, and then only two of them: Bare Necessities and I Wanna Be Like You. This new version wants to have it both ways: to make up for the affront and keep it.
Initially it seems to be taking the story quite seriously, even solemnly. Elba is magnificently menacing as the ferocious tiger Shere Khan. The opening scenes are quite intense – if you have young children, that Parental Guidance rating is there for a reason. But when Mowgli meets up with Baloo (Murray) the tone lightens dramatically and abruptly.
And then something really unexpected happens, so much so I'm tempted to call it a spoiler – they sing Bare Necessities. It's a taker aback and no mistake – it's as if during The Dark Knight a big sign saying Kapow, in the style of the 60s TV Batman, appeared on screen every time Bale threw a punch. So there you are thinking this would be quite a stern 21st Century re-imagining of a 20th century frippery and then it does an about face.
And if you're going to do the songs, do them properly. Possibly the highlight of the film is Christopher Walken as King Louis, an enormous Orang-utan (the extinct Gigantopithecus apparently), which is done as a parody of Brando in Apocalypse Now. It's a great turn, both funny and scary. But when he starts to perform I Wanna Be Like You, the Brando he brings to mind is the one that mumbled through Luck Be A Lady Tonight in Guys and Dolls in a thin little voice: he's not terrible but, just like Murray earlier, not good enough to really do justice to such great material. (Walken's in his mid seventies, even Sinatra's voice went at that age. A decade or two ago Walken might have been a match for Louis Prima himself in the 1967 version.)
The songs aside all the animal performances work really well. The central figure of Mowgli is less convincing: his climbing skills are impressive but he doesn't talk or behave like a kid who was brought up without any human influence, more like a child who's spending a week in the jungle exploring.
It isn't as assured of itself, or as clever and entertaining as Zootropolis but there is fun and wonder here.
The Jungle Book. (PG.)
Directed by Jon Favreau.
Starring Neel Sethi, Featuring the voices of Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba, Scarlett Johansson and Christopher Walken. 106 mins.
Even for Disney, two talking animal films in a month seems excessive. After the animation Zootropolis, comes this live action (ish) version of Rudyard Kipling's tale. Mowgli, the young “man cub” who has been brought up by a pack of wolves after being abandoned in the jungle, is played by an unknown child actor, (Sethi), surrounded by computer generated real animals, voiced by Hollywood stars. It all looks real, but in such an intense, heightened way, that it is like something from Avatar, rather than the planet Earth.
The film sees Disney revisiting one of its great landmarks – the animated 1967 film which was the last one overseen by Walt himself – with a mixture of apology and defiance. It's a beloved classic, of course, though notorious for being a travesty of the Kipling original and the dated jazzy hep cat characterisations. I suspect a lot of the love for it is really more for the songs than the film, and then only two of them: Bare Necessities and I Wanna Be Like You. This new version wants to have it both ways: to make up for the affront and keep it.
Initially it seems to be taking the story quite seriously, even solemnly. Elba is magnificently menacing as the ferocious tiger Shere Khan. The opening scenes are quite intense – if you have young children, that Parental Guidance rating is there for a reason. But when Mowgli meets up with Baloo (Murray) the tone lightens dramatically and abruptly.
And then something really unexpected happens, so much so I'm tempted to call it a spoiler – they sing Bare Necessities. It's a taker aback and no mistake – it's as if during The Dark Knight a big sign saying Kapow, in the style of the 60s TV Batman, appeared on screen every time Bale threw a punch. So there you are thinking this would be quite a stern 21st Century re-imagining of a 20th century frippery and then it does an about face.
And if you're going to do the songs, do them properly. Possibly the highlight of the film is Christopher Walken as King Louis, an enormous Orang-utan (the extinct Gigantopithecus apparently), which is done as a parody of Brando in Apocalypse Now. It's a great turn, both funny and scary. But when he starts to perform I Wanna Be Like You, the Brando he brings to mind is the one that mumbled through Luck Be A Lady Tonight in Guys and Dolls in a thin little voice: he's not terrible but, just like Murray earlier, not good enough to really do justice to such great material. (Walken's in his mid seventies, even Sinatra's voice went at that age. A decade or two ago Walken might have been a match for Louis Prima himself in the 1967 version.)
The songs aside all the animal performances work really well. The central figure of Mowgli is less convincing: his climbing skills are impressive but he doesn't talk or behave like a kid who was brought up without any human influence, more like a child who's spending a week in the jungle exploring.
It isn't as assured of itself, or as clever and entertaining as Zootropolis but there is fun and wonder here.
