Adorable and adhering to the original tale of Mowgli written by Rudyard Kipling. If you have been a fan of the Jungle Book story, you are going to simply love this version of it.
Historical Import of The Jungle Book
The Jungle Book has a special place in our hearts. Some fail to fathom the hype in our heads. We have waited impatiently for this movie to release and jog us down the forgotten memory lane ever since the news broke loose. The sole reason: 1989 show Jungle Book Shonen Mowgli! The dubbed TV show used to be our all-time favourite. Its outspread wings covered more than 20 languages all across the globe, a commendable feat to score even during that span. The acclaim was such that its song would be on every child’s lips. That explains our inane fandom behind it.
Coming across the Rudyard Kipling excerpt was enthralling too as images from the anime would come running down to fill the voids. Every character had a face. Every word had a voice. My fanatic knew no bound when I heard it was going big screen.
Direction of the Movie
Now that we have finally arrived at a juncture where Jon Favreau has successfully helmed the gorgeous telling story to justify the awesome Kipling book, it is hard not to give him an ovation. With a superb CGI that walks hand in hand with realistic looking animals and endearing voiceovers, The Jungle Book era seems to have finally met a new high. The kind we, as diehard fans, were looking for. Whilst little has been done to mould the plot, which is by the way just perfect, we are racing down to meet exceptional twists and turns in its impending installments. Way to go Favreau!
Characters Brought to Life
Shere Khan is simply a badass. He carries a demonic mien that will give you the chills looking at him. Idris Elba takes him to fearsome heights. Baloo’s entry is well thought of and perfected by Bill Murray. Ben Kingsley imparts a thoughtful grim demeanour to Bagheera. You cannot ignore Christopher Walken’s perfect voice for King Louie. He puts life into that animal. Lupita as Raksha is magnificent. Adorable wolf-cubs in the movie will fill your heart up with delight.
The screenplay of the movie is kind of average, sticking to origins at times, sometimes swaying, but not really that powerful.
You can order The Jungle Book movie from here:
Downsides
The parts that I didn’t like much were these trivial insignificant things which I choose to ignore:
Starting off with Neel Sethi, we could have done better. The lad, although great in resemblance, doesn’t really fit the bill. He looks absent emotionally as he if knew he was surrounded by CGI and not the real deal. Favreau fails to milk his emotions enough. Sentient things seemed aloof. Sometimes the CGI would dwindle when showing movements of animals and things would awkwardly move into the animated horizon. But still it all held up pretty fine. The end result we get is The Jungle Book we have always wanted as a kid.
Now that we have a darker version under the anvils (The Andy Serkis version) it would be intriguing to see towards which abyss this tale steers toward.
You can check out the trailer of The Jungle Book here:
The Jungle Book
Comments
Yup at times he did not deliver and was absent …. as such mowgli should have been more involved in the tarzan like character.
Author
Couldn’t agree more. He seemed distant from his thoughts.