Glorious, glorious remakes abound as Disney plumbs the depths of its animated film library to essentially remake everything they can in live-action, repurposing classic films for a new generation. Already done with Maleficent (which at least tried to see things from the villain's view) and Cinderella, now they remake the final film ol' Walt himself was alive for the production of, The Jungle Book.
By now the plot is fairly well-known; man-cub Mowgli (Neel Sethi) is found as a child by Bagheera the Panther (Ben Kingsley) and raised by wolves. Of course man cannot exist peacefully with the animals, as the fearsome man-killer Shere Khan (Idris Elba) has a vendetta against the man cub, and so Mowgli must venture back to the man village or else be killed.
To call this a "live-action" film is being fairly generous, since the only live-action thing in it is Mowgli, acting on green screen to animals that were placed in later. To be fair, the film is gorgeous, and the photorealistic jungle settings are sights to behold. The animals are, for the most part, fairly convincing. They are pretty clearly CGI creations, but the fact that they talk makes their artificiality forgivable.
The voice actors are all, for the most part, suitable to their roles. It's a little bit distracting at first, but you get used to Bill Murray as Baloo and Scarlett Johansson as Kaa. The only miscast is Christopher Walken as King Louie; he has such a distinct voice that I never really saw the massive orangutang, instead seeing the man behind the facade.
Neel Sethi, on the other hand, is not very good, and I hate saying that about child actors. He brings a great physicality to the role, jumping through trees and running through fields. But his line readings are terribly flat, although it's hard not to blame him. It must be pretty hard, being a kid and having your first big acting gig be entirely on a green screen stage, imagining all the creatures around you.
In terms of adaptation, the movie does a good job of hitting the familiar beats of the story as told by Disney (most audiences, myself included, are probably more familiar with the animated film rather than the book). There's enough that feels fresh here that makes the movie worth recommending. Not everything is exactly the same as the old one (no mop-top Beatles-lite Vultures), and the central conflict between Mowgli and Shere Khan is a little more interesting (although it is slightly boring that Shere Khan killed Mowgli's father and orphaned him).
My biggest gripe is with the songs; "Bare Necessities" and "I Wanna Be Like You" are redone, but none of the other songs are. It's fairly odd when Baloo and Louie break out into song for no reason other than "this song was in the original and we have to redo because it's what audiences remember." The moments don't entirely work and pull me out of the world the movie has built.
But, otherwise, this is worth checking out. The visuals are stunning, and though I did not see this in 3D, I did see a trailer for it in 3D a while back and was blown away by it. In terms of remakes and adaptations, this is a pretty solid one. I'm not sure we needed it, and will be interesting to see how audiences receive Andy Serkis' version in two years, but for now, this is a solid piece of entertainment.
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