The Jungle Book
Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book, almost to an aggravating degree, proves at least two things. First, it proves that Disney’s campaign to convert their animated classics catalog into live action remakes is not an unanimously misguided and moronic effort. Second, it joins Avatar, Life of Pi, and Gravity on the tragically small list of films which justify total CGI immersion for a magnificently entertaining theatrical experience built on engrossing locales and wonderful performances. These reasons are aggravating only because we so fiercely want to keep practical effects alive and do away with bringing our favorite hand-drawn friends into the real world. But it shouldn’t be to Favreau’s detriment that he figured out a way to do them both right when so many get either one wrong. Having dreaded this release for months, I now admit that for two hours, he was able to help me forget about my worries and my strife.
The most refreshing thing about this version of The Jungle Book is that the filmmakers are not obsessed with telling the tale with some obnoxious new twist. This remake has a reverence and respect for the fun-loving nature and aimless plot of Walt Disney’s animated classic, and recognizes them as strengths. The film still finds young Mowgli (Neel Sethi) on the cusp of adulthood, unable to stay with his adopted wolf pack family when the fearsome tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba) returns to the land with the sole objective of murdering the “man cub”. Guiding by his panther mentor Bagheera (Ben Kingsley), Mowgli treks through the jungles of India to return to his own kind, encountering the wild and sometimes dangerous denizens of the jungle along the way.
A great new addition to this familiar tale is the addition of several small touches from Rudyard Kipling’s original “Jungle Book” stories. Where Walt’s instructions to his animators after handing them a copy of Kipling’s book was “don’t read it”, Favreau and screenwriter Justin Marks lend greater weight to the Law of the Jungle, the mythology of its creation, and the darker and more conniving natures of its populace. These elements play to one of the film’s greatest strengths: that it makes the jungle an enthralling locale with a life all its own. There is wonder in its sprawling plains, and danger in the twisting branches of its green canopies. The decision here to create the locations and animals entirely in a computer has lent the filmmakers ultimate control in their design, capturing the fantastical elements as well as the realistic menace inherent in Kipling’s original stories.
Flawlessly designed forests and realistic looking animals are one thing, but what does it mean if there is no emotional imbued in them? The answer to that is a magnificent cast drawing from fantastic source material. It comes as no surprise that Kingsley almost effortlessly nails the role of Bagheera, wise and authorative, but still with a trick or two to learn. Lupita N’yongo sells the ferocity and tenderness of mother wolf Raksha, who does not want to send her son away to live with his own species even as the entire jungle turns their back on him, and Scarlett Johannsson does great work with her too-brief stint as the hypnotic python Kaa. Stealing the show are Elba as Shere Khan and Bill Murray as the easy going bear Baloo. Elba conveys less of the charm that George Sanders brought to the 1967 role and instead gives this version of the tiger justifiable motivation for hating man and plays up Kipling’s more injured and conniving version of the character, losing none of the menace. It’s no shock that Murray perfectly captures the lazy but good-hearted lovability of Baloo, magnificently selling the friendship struck up between he and Mowgli almost in an instant.
At so many turns Favreau finds a great blend between the darker version of the story and the accepted canon of what it should be as gleaned from the animated classic. A great step in the right direction is making Mowgli less of a whiny brat whom you wish Kaa had swallowed long ago and more of a social outcast who recognizes he doesn’t quite belong in the jungle. The film becomes less about knowing one’s place in the world, and instead about understanding when your skills are useful to making it better, or if you bring more harm than good by staying out of your element. This is not to say the movie reaches any profound conclusions regarding these themes, nor contains any awe-inspiring speeches that shed mind-blowing light on character motivations. But the thought is there, and it is thankfully underplayed rather than jammed down our throats, which I’d take any day of the week.
That is not to say the film is flawless. Where Favreau and his team introduce refreshing new themes and elements into a familiar story, the balance is not always agreeable. Murray is responsible for basically all of the film’s laughs, which leads to a sometimes unpleasant and dull opening forty-five minutes. Where the darker elements of the story are welcome, the allure of the story is not just to show the jungle as dangerous, but also as a wondrous eco-system where hundreds of species propagate the circle of life. The fun is not gone from the film, but it too can tip to the other extreme. Mowgli and Baloo’s rendition of “The Bare Necessities” is a grin-inducing showstopper that will having you humming along, but the inclusion of gigantopithicus (look it up) King Louie (Christopher Walken) crooning “I Wanna Be Like You” doesn’t quite fit, and should have been confined solely to the end credits. What’s great is that these inclusions do not appear slavish to the memory of the animated film. Rather, it comes off as an honest misstep from people who loved those songs as kids as so many of us did, and wanted to give us the chance to tap our toes along to them in a theater again. While it is a disconnect to the mature viewer, I can’t fault anybody who included these touches so that myself and, more importantly, the kids in the audience can have a fun time at the movies.
The Jungle Book is not mind-blowing in any sense, not even in its entirely digital but life-like locales. The seams can still show from scene to scene, but others will leave you speechless in their detail and beauty. Sometimes you won’t even register that everything besides Mowgli is CGI, but being invisible is the highest praise you can lend a special effects team. Detractors of the episodic plot will still find nit-picks here, but keep in mind that these come from a collection of stories, and the pleasure of The Jungle Book in film and book is to spend time with its wonderful characters. In this regard there are still a few disappointments. King Louie’s character could have used some more work to turn him into a tragic figure whose motivations make sense. Even with Walken voicing him, there is neither enough menace nor craziness to make him a threat. There is also, in my own humble opinion, not nearly enough Kaa in the story. To bounce between such a vast and well thought out world is difficult though, and Favreau and his team have gotten off to a magnificent start. A sequel is naturally already in the works, and knowing where Kipling took Mowgli in subsequent stories has me excited at the prospect. Though I would say I still prefer Walt’s animated classic to this rendition, The Jungle Book has given me a healthy dose of humble pie and caused me to admit that new adaptations of “untouchable” classics can truly be entertaining, engrossing, awe-inspiring, intense, and can breathe new light into themes and characters to help me realize why I love them all the more. But I’m still not in for Tim Burton’s Dumbo. I’ve still got lots of worries and strife about that one.
