Four stars. Rated PG, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.15.16
The CGI tiger in 2012’s
big-screen adaptation of Life of Pi was quite impressive.
This one is better.
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| Although Mowgli (Neel Sethi) often is puzzled by the rule-laden lectures he constantly receives from Bagheera, the boy is about to discover precisely why some of these lessons are so important. |
Indeed, the myriad faux animals
in Disney’s fresh take on Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book are rendered with
jaw-dropping authenticity. Many viewers likely will spend much of the first act
trying to decide which (if any) of the critters are real — either in close-up
or distant group shots — and which are genius computer animation.
I was convinced that a darling
little tree frog was real, as it hopped out of some water, until it brushed
itself in an adorable — but decidedly unfroglike — manner. At which point, I
simply abandoned the exercise and settled comfortably into an exhilarating
experience that Kipling himself never could have imagined.
Justin Marks’ screenplay owes
more to Disney’s animated 1967 adaptation than Kipling’s nine short stories about
the “man cub” Mowgli, and his adventures with the various creatures — benign
and dangerous — that make their home in the Indian jungle. Fans of the earlier
animated film will be pleased to see Marks hit all the narrative and character
high points, most notably those concerning the fatherly panther Bagheera, the
free-spirited bear Baloo, and the utterly malevolent tiger Shere Khan.
Mowgli is played to
impressionable, young-kid perfection by 12-year-old newcomer Neel Sethi,
introduced during a bravura chase through the jungle, which is choreographed
for maximum breathtaking excitement by director Jon Favreau and editor Mark
Livolsi. It’s an impressive prologue: a pell-mell blend of running, jumping and
tumbling through jungle undergrowth, up and down trees, and across small
canyons.
I can’t imagine how Sethi and
Favreau did it, and — of course — that’s the magic of movies. (For starters,
the kid must have the world’s toughest feet.)
Back-story eventually reveals
that a toddler-age Mowgli was found by Bagheera (voiced by Ben Kingsley), who
brought the child to Raksha (Lupita Nyong’o), one of many wolves belonging to a
pack led by alpha male Akela (Giancarlo Esposito). Although subsequently raised
in the way of the wolves — most particularly the chanted law, “The strength of
the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack” — Mowgli cannot
help the blossoming human ingenuity that enables him to “do tricks” (Bagheera’s
term) that simplify certain tasks.
Such “tricks,” alas, are met with
suspicion by the jungle’s many other creatures.
