‘The Jungle Book’ (2016): The adaptation the world’s been waiting for

I don’t consider Disney’s 1967 animated version of “The Jungle Book” to be a “classic.” It was popular it its time and was still pretty known when I was a kid, but it hasn’t transferred over well into newer generations.

I wasn’t too keen on seeing Disney’s live action adaption of their secondary-class animated film. Once the credits started rolling, though, I’ll admit that I, surprisingly, rather enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

As an infant, the man cub known as Mowgli (Neel Sethi) is found by Bagheera the panther and taken to live among a pack of wolves. One day, Mowgli is discovered by Shere Khan the tiger (Idris Elba) and it is decided that Mowgli will be safer in the man village to live out the rest of his life. Escorted by Bagheera, the two set out to find the village and, along the way, Mowgli encounters various creatures, both friends and foe. Although the plot is fairly simple and, in my opinion, a little boring, the movie is still a wonderful piece of cinema. But it’s not without problems.

For starters, the script itself wasn’t all that great. In fact, it seemed really rushed. Every subplot was barely touched upon, giving us almost no time to really care about what was going on. It was almost like watching a watered down Michael Bay film where the movie is constantly plagued with action sequences with very little story and no character development. I found myself not caring too much about the characters and felt like Disney was hoping enough of the audience had seen the animated film and would draw off of childhood nostalgia to develop feelings for the characters.

I also didn’t like that the film actually incorporates two of the songs from the animated film into this version, which was really awkward for me to watch. In an animated film, those songs work, but in a live-action movie they just felt out of place. Again, I felt like Disney only used them for the nostalgia effect and the only people I heard react to it were those my age and older while the children in the audience seemed to be hearing them for the first time.

The film isn’t all bad, though. The voice cast in this film, which includes Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley and Lupita Nyong’o are terrifically on point. Also present is an underused, yet seductively enticing, Scarlet Johannsson as Kaa the snake, proving that you don’t even have to see her to know she’s one of the world’s sexiest women. The voice actors did a bang-up job bringing their characters to life, but Idris Elba and Christopher Walken as King Louie shine the brightest. Their voices matched their characters perfectly. I also felt like Neel Sethi gave a great debut performance, but he didn’t blow me away. It’s obvious he still has a lot to learn about acting, particularly during his emotional scenes, but I’ll cut him some slack because I think it’d be hard for any 12-year-old to have to act with men in green suits and pretend they’re actual animals.

The real heroes of this movie, though, are the ones you never see on screen: the CGI department. The animation in this film is some of the best I’ve ever seen. Watching the movie, you’d never know that the entire film was filmed on one stage with just five green screens surrounding it. The animals are some of the best I’ve ever seen. Everything looks so real, almost too real, and the opening minutes are truly breathtaking.

This film had its fair share of problems, but overall I was able to enjoy it. The bottom line is, “The Jungle Book” is a breakthrough in visual storytelling with a talented voice cast and some of the best animation you’ll ever see.

—-keithariaz1@gmail.com