We went and saw The Jungle Book Saturday night. I was cringing inside thinking I was going to watch a stupid kid movie gone bad by trying to make a cartoon into a real movie. I have to say that it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. I enjoyed some if not most of it.
The story itself follows Mowgli pretty much like in the cartoon from way back in the day. He is a little boy who is orphaned but somehow gets raised by the animals. This part is hard enough to believe, but the real magic is that all of the creatures large and small speak English, so Mowgli can communicate with them. I think the idea worked only because they didn't have another person, so we can believe that English might actually be a language only the animals understand. Once you get past that, then it can be fun accepting the animals acting and talking like they should. Baloo, was probably the funniest part of the movie, played by Bill Murray, he is an oversized bear who uses Mowgli for his benefit to get him some honey from up high on a cliff ledge. Mowgli meets Baloo on his journey to a human village after being threatened by the area bully, a Bengal tiger. Although Mowgli is happy to be getting raised by the wolf pack, the elder animals know he must eventually be returned to the humans. The tiger wants to kill the boy because his father burned his face with a stick that was lit on fire. I thought it was shitty that the tiger wanted revenge on the boy for a couple burn marks on his face, meanwhile he killed the dad when Mowgli was a baby.
We are told this happens in a flashback by the boa constrictor played seductively by Scarlett Johansson. She hisses softly and moves in very slowly towards and around the boy. She is at the same time retelling what happened that night his father was murdered and also wrapping herself around him. She keeps saying she will protect him, when really, she is trying to wrap him to squeeze the life out of him. If Baloo didn't step in, he would be dead. Technically, the bear did save his life, so the boy does owe him a huge favor. They become close friends after he has left the wolf pack, not doing much as the bear is kind of lazy. I thought it weird that most of my family said the bear reminded them of me, a-holes.
There is also a weird side story, when Mowgli is kidnapped by the monkeys and taken to a temple where King Louie resides. It is the unmistakable voice of Christopher Walken. He wants the power of fire, and since man can yield it, he figures Mowgli can make it. There is a great rescue scene here, but Mowgli mostly escapes on his own, but not before Louie tells Mowgli that the male wolf who acted as his father was murdered again, by the Bengal tiger trying to lure the boy back.
The last act shows Mowgli acting like a grown up, facing the tiger by himself. He uses his skills with a rope made of vines to outsmart the tiger who follows him up a tree, and gets him to step on a dead branch which of course breaks, sending the tiger to his death.
There were some sappy parts and some ridiculous parts, but overall the movie was not that bad. It was kind of cute.
No comments:
Post a Comment