The Jungle Book (2016)

The Jungle Book (2016)

8/10

               

Starring

Bill Murray

Ben Kingsley

Idris Elba

Christopher Walken

Neel Sethi

Directed by Jon Favreau

If you want to behold a new level of CGI and a wonderful retelling of the Jungle Book tale, not to mention the high intensive nostalgic felling as each minute goes by, go see The Jungle Book, the movie is wonderful.

This is the best adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book I have seen till date. The cherry on top of this ice cream sundae is Disney addition of their very own 1967 animation lines, songs and screenplay into this masterpiece.

Now if you have seen the 1967 version and you have come to love the songs and the transition of Mowgli’s adventure through the forest to the man’s village with the aid of Baloo and Bagheera by his side, get ready for a thrill. The songs were added and the transition kept steady with a lot of additions in between.

I found myself singing along to “The Bare Necessities” song with Baloo and Mowgli, not to forget the catchy song of King Louie’s “Red Flower.” Now if you think this was a musical fantasy adventure film where they pause to sing, sorry it is not. It is a thrilling action packed adventure film where the characters singing was just right.

The voice casting couldn’t have been done better Bill Murray and Ben Kingsley were a wonderful pair (as they voiced Baloo and Bagheera respectively), but the voice that stood out for me was Christopher Walken as King Louie. The next great thing in the movie is the 13-year-old Neel Sethi who played Mowgli. This is his feature film debut and he was awesome, you would find it hard to tell he was making a debut because he was so good at his job.

Now many of us are already very familiar with The Jungle Book story and other than the expected changes which you would expect Disney to make, the movie tells the tale of a young boy named Mowgli.

Mowgli (in this Disney version) was a young boy when his father was killed by Shere Khan (Idris Elba). Now Mowgli survived and was taken by the Black Panther Bagheera to live and be cared for by a pack of wolves led by Akela, the pack leader.

Mowgli grew and learned the way of the jungle, but Shere Khan wanted him and decided to rage war against any who protects him.

Bagheera decided to take Mowgli back to the man village to save him from Shere Khan, and their journey birthed an adventure so well directed by Jon Favreau that you have to see it.

Warner Bros are also working on a Jungle Book story which I hope will be worth the time, because Disney has raised the bar high.