This has been a challenging post to write this past week. There was a small fire in the kitchen at home and then the next day a large fire on the family property that was pretty scary. I find it ironic that it should happen during the same week as when I am writing a review about the Jungle Book, which fire plays a big part in.
The movie starts out with the Disney castle, as all Disney movies do, but then it transforms into a jungle setting in India where soon see Mowgli (played by Neel Sethi) running through the trees. It looks like he is running from something and then we see glimpses of wolves running around him. Just as we think he might get away a tree branch breaks under him and he is pounced on by a Black Panther. We soon discover that this is Bagheera (voiced by Ben Kingsley) and he is training the wolf cubs and Mowgli to survive in the jungle. He gets upset with Mowgli for going into the trees instead of staying low to the ground like a wolf.
They head back to the wolf den and we meet the wolf pups and their mother, Raksha (voiced by Lupita Nyong'o). After Mowgli talks with them, Akela (voiced by Giancarlo Esposito) calls the grown wolves together and do the wolf motto. It then goes to a porcupine claiming rocks and sticks until it finds a huge rock called peace rock, which alerts a bird that informs everyone about it. All the animals go to peace rock for water, and Mowgli throws something to get himself water, startling the other animals. Bagheera has Mowgli dump it back in the rest of the water, telling him not to use his "tricks", because it's not the wolf way. All the animals then get scared when Shere Khan (voiced by Idris Elba) arrives for water, then he smells Mowgli and threatens the wolves that Mowgli will destroy the jungle unless they give Mowgli to him. The wolves refuse to give him up, and Shere Khan tells them that they have to give Mowgli to him by the time peace rock gets covered or he will take Mowgli by force.
This was a great movie to watch. I really enjoy the 1967 original movie from Disney, so it made me interested to see what they would do with this one. They kept a lot of the elements from the animated movie but brought in more from the book than before. It made the movie more interesting and terrifying. What I really found incredible was the computer animation. I have read many people talking about the live animals used, but in fact they were all computer animated. Jim Henson productions came in with puppets for the new young actor Neel to work with, but he is the only live actor in the movie. Even more impressive is how the entire movie was filmed in a green screen studio. This movie truly shows how amazing computer animation has become over the years. There were a couple of continuity errors but really they are are a drop in the bucket to all the hours of work put into making this production.
Take the great computer animation and add in first time child actor Neel Sethi, who did an amazing job and you have a hit. As mentioned he acted with just puppets to play off of and some live movements from the voice actors. With this as his first movie credit to his name I am sure we will be seeing great things from him. However, having some of Hollywood's great actors there to voice the animals probably made for some great learning experience for him. All of the actors were spot on in the voicing of the characters. Turning Kaa into a woman and having her voiced by Scarlett Johansson was a brilliant move. Ben Kingsley and Bill Murray killed it as Bagheera and Baloo, respectively, however my favorite pairing of voice actor to character is Christopher Walken for King Louie. His strong personality was the perfect choice for the larger than life gigantopithecus, a great and accurate replacement to the original orangutan.
This is probably one of the best family films I have watched doing this blog. Disney hit it out of the park with this remake. Only because of the continuity errors do I rate this movie 9.8/10. This is a must see for the entire family.
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