Oo bee doo!
The Jungle Book. Not as must see as most of the Disney Classics, but they remade it anyway. Good for them! I was strongly opposed to seeing this movie until I found out that Christopher Walken voices King Louie, and if you know how often I break out my Walken you'd understand why that's a game changer.
I'm going to start by being a little bit nit picky. I'm a nerd, I'm kind of obligated. My first thought upon seeing Baloo was, Why is there a brown bear in the Indian jungle? Bagheera answered that on screen, calling him a sloth bear. While the sloth bear is totally a thing, and environmentally appropriate for the Indian jungles, Disney uses a brown bear to pander to viewers of the original animated movie. Sloth bears are almost the complete opposite in every possible way that Baloo was portrayed in the movie. Then there's King Louie. Personally, I have my doubts that an extinct giant orangutan who knows the scientific terminology for his genus (gigantopithecus) would have any issues figuring out "man's red flower." Okay, enough nerd rage. Now the good stuff.
Disney's digital animation team was completely on point with this film. The animals look really good. There are only a few that look kind of cartoony, but they're mostly secondary comic relief characters and probably aren't that far off of the real things anyway. The vocal talents are perfect for the characters they bring to life: Kaa is coy and seductive thanks to Scarlett Johansson, Idris Elba as Shere Khan is crafty and menacing, Ben Kingsley lends an aristocratic dignity to Bagheera, Baloo is made all the more comically shifty by the legendary Bill Murray, and Christopher Walken puts an intimidating new spin on King Louie with an old school New York gangster approach. And massive points to Neel Sethi, the actor portraying Mowgli. Not only his first major motion picture, but he performed perfectly among his fellow actors, none of whom were present on set. Keep an eye on this kid, he's got some serious acting chops and will go far.
I was a little put off by the inclusion of the musical numbers in this iteration of The Jungle Book. The scene where Baloo is singing Bare Necessities under his breath was great, it was a nice little nod to the original that leads to character development and motivational insights about Mowgli and Baloo. But when they break into full song only a few short minutes later it breaks the tone that has been set for the entire movie to that point. Then to do it a second time during the King Louie scene with I Wanna Be Like You, these undermine the carefully crafted atmosphere with out of place operatics. I wish the inclusion of the original songs had been limited to the end credits where Christopher Walken's performance shines, particularly accompanied by King Louie dancing and swinging around a miniature ruins. And sure, once the animated credits are over and The Jungle Book closes on King Louie, you could leave; but if you do you'll miss the song worth sitting through the credits for: Trust In Me. The revamped score combined with Scarlett Johansson's voice is magic. This song is good enough that were they to make it a little longer it could be a Bond theme.
Overall Jungle Book was a great movie and worth the trip to the theater. Great script, good adaptation from traditional animation to live action, excellent score, solid acting. If you have a chance to see it on the big screen, take that chance. Trust in me.
