The Jungle Book Review

The Fanboy SEO reviews The Jungle Book! Directed by Jon Favreau and stars Neel Sethi, Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley and a whole lot more.

I wasn’t able to do an advance review for Jungle Book but now I’m catching up. And if you’ve read my contemporaries’ reviews, they all point to how gorgeous the movie is. Visually appealing and life-like, for an hour or two, you get to believe that bears, panthers, tigers, wolves and even an oversized orangutan is real and that they actual talk.

Let me brave the haters and say that I liked this Jungle Book better than the original animated version. It’s got more flair, more style and definitely they trimmed down the sing-song element to just two songs. Two songs. One was so-so and the other rang up the nostalgia bomb in my head.

Voicework was perfect for most will Bill Murray’s Baloo getting a good score in my book. It’s all on point here for me. Idris Elba’s Shere Khan was menacing and regal to some extent while Ben Kingsley’s Bagheera was fatherly and wise; or maybe they were pre-determined already because of how they made a name for themselves in the biz. Regardless, I thought they were spot-on.

Also Disney needs to promote whoever thought of making Christopher Walken voice the giant orangutan King Louie.

There’s very little difference between the live action, the animated film and the source material, which is the novel written decades ago by Rudyard Kipling. Baloo is still the happy go lucky bear, Bagheera still the strong silent, fatherly panther and Mowgli is the centerpiece and moves the story along just nice.

Speaking of which, I close my eyes for a second and when I look at the screen Sethi suddenly becomes animated Mowgli. The casting’s that close to the actual cartoon from back in the day.

The songs are integral part of the story and you can’t have “The Jungle Book” without the classic song “Bear Necessities”. Good thing Bill Murray brought his A-Game here and we get that tune going. It gets better too with Sethi and a CGI bear dancing along the forest and doing fun stuff. Really great and it took me back to my childhood.

THE JUNGLE BOOK

The effects used for the fire and even for animal-to-animal brutality here is off the charts. And we saw this in 2D, imagine how it’ll blow your mind if you catch it on IMAX or 3D.

Satisfied with The Jungle Book honestly. Everything worked from the casting, the actual voicework and the visual effects. I think I’ll give the flick a second viewing just to get my fix.

Verdict: 9/10

Special thanks to Walt Disney Studios Philippines.