The Jungle Book

Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book is a live action remake of the 1967 animated musical of the same name, based on the book by Rudyard Kipling. It joins other contemporary live action remakes of classic Disney cartoons, such as Robert Stromberg’s Maleficent (2014), a remake of Sleeping Beauty (1959), and Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella (2015), a remake of the 1950 animation of the same name.

The 2016 version of The Jungle Book seems to be a throwback to the film it is based on, even more so than other remakes. It borrows quotes from the cartoon, as is typical, shows some minor imagery from the cartoon, and includes instrumental versions of most of the songs from it, or variations of them. It is important to note, however, that the film is not the swingin’ 60s musical that inspired it.

Songs with any lyrics are only inserted later on in the film. Baloo (Bill Murray) mumbles “The Bare Necessities” to himself, building up to when he and Mowgli (Neel Sethi) sing it together a couple of scenes later.  It’s objective to the story and the relationship between the two, as well as gives the audience their favourite song from the cartoon. Not so much the case when King Louie (Christopher Walken) sings “I Wan’na Be like You”. Because the film has no musical numbers until over an hour in, it shouldn’t follow the logic of a musical world. Yet the song is introduced in such a manner, with King Louie speaking in rhyme to a tempo before breaking into song with exegetic music. Thus, it is out of place.

This brings us to a major difference between the cartoon and the remake. The cartoon was cartoony. The remake is not, having quite a darker tone. If an audience loves the cartoon for its lighter qualities and wishes to see them replicated in live action, they may find darker tones unappealing by comparison. The remake is more violent than its predecessor, having numerous fight scenes between animal characters, showing battle damage on Mowgli’s body, and a few deaths here and there. Even King Louie, one of the funniest and most likeable characters from the cartoon (despite him technically being a villain), appears downright scary in a scene where he chases Mowgli through his temple ruins. One could argue that the change of tone to one that has been deemed unsuitable for very young viewers, and the lack of musical genre qualities, is in conflict with the spirit of the source material.

The film has detailed environments, with varying levels of colourfulness depending on location. The visuals appear to have fairly heavy shading throughout, even in brightly lit scenes. The visual style has a realistic edge in the detail of its characters. The CGI animal characters are mostly convincing in the way they look and move. Some characters’ faces are more anthropomorphised or expressive than others. In Bagheera’s case, for example, while the character emotes as far as his catlike features allow, his face doesn’t have a great range of human-like expressions. Fortunately, Ben Kingsley’s vocal delivery compensates for such conditions.

The cast in the film is well selected, as the actors give good performances. Neel Sethi greatly resembles the part of Mowgli from the cartoon. He makes an effort to emote throughout the majority of the film. There are one or two scenes where his body language and delivery during longer stretches of dialogue feel a little awkward, but overall a fine performance and a likeable depiction of a child character. Bagheera as voiced by Ben Kingsley is the most familiar character of the film, sounding and acting similarly to the 1967 version. Kingsley’s portrayal resembles that of Sebastian Cabot as Bagheera, as well as the personality of the character from the animated film. Bill Murray’s voice, on the other hand, doesn’t have as much resemblance to Baloo’s cartoon counterpart. While Phil Harris’ performance was deep and smooth, Murray’s delivery of the character sounds a lot more casual. Regarding the character himself, Baloo is not so much represented as chilled and relaxed so much as he is lazy, being introduced as kind of selfish and deceitful. This greatly contrasts from the idealised expectation that audiences will likely have for the representation of the character.

Shere Khan (Idris Elba) is also represented in contrast to his animated counterpart. Shere Khan as played by George Sanders was a sophisticated villain, yet still feared for his built-up-to brutality. This version doesn’t have such a sophisticated quality, being far more aggressive and physically threatening. To Elba’s credit, he pulls this off immensely, giving Shere Khan an intimidating voice to match the character’s design. In a nice surprise, Scarlett Johansson plays the part of Kaa the snake, in a female representation of the character. Her voice in Kaa’s scene is gentle, relaxing and seductive, giving a perfect mood to match the character’s intentions and hypnotic tenancies. Scarlett Johansson also sings “Trust In Me” at the end credits, which is itself incredibly soothing and hypnotic. King Louie’s portrayal by Christopher Walken has similarities to the voice of Louis Prima, although Walken’s New York accent gives King Louie more of a ‘crime boss’ feel to the character.

Given more focus in this film than in the cartoon are Mowgli’s wolf pack, including his adoptive mother Raksha (Lupita Nyong’o) and the alpha male Akela (Giancario Esposito). Raksha has a kindly and relatively soft-spoken voice, and has a genuinely touching scene with Mowgli when he is sent away from the pack. Akela seems proud and authoritative, but still calm and reasonable. The film also includes a herd of elephants, though presented with more dignity and majesty than Hathi and his herd from the 1967 film. The elephants have no dialogue, and they contribute very little other than conveniences.

The film follows a fairly recognised plot, mirroring a number of scenes in different ways from the situations of the cartoon. The story has what might be called improvements in some parts, and yet holes in other places. Mowgli seems more proactive than in the animated film, he seems more capable of survival skills and he has more of a personality. It is smart that the film illustrates Mowgli’s family relationship with his pack. Something that sets Mowgli apart from other animals is his ability to make tools to compensate for his human physiology. Unless invention is a human instinct, one might ask how Mowgli learned how to do this if wolves raised him. It is also a good choice that Shere Khan appears in the first act for him to recognise and threaten Mowgli personally. It arguably creates a more dramatic conflict between the protagonist and antagonist that brings tension to Shere Khan’s malice and Mowgli’s fight for survival.

One of the most noticeable holes of the story is the pretense that Baloo can’t climb. This makes little sense, as the scene where he is introduced takes place at an elevated point, so he must have had to climb to get there. And then there’s the question of what he was doing there in the first place. Kaa’s hypnotic eyes raise another question. In this film she evidently has the ability to induce detailed visions. The vision sequence is a segue to Kaa trapping a hypnotised Mowgli in her coils, but not only does this sequence imply that Kaa conveniently saw Mowgli’s origin first-hand and can accurately replicate the visuals, it seems strange as to why Kaa of all characters is imparting a certain plot-constructive knowledge onto Mowgli when her intention is to eat him. This introduction to the concept of fire seems mildly superfluous when Baloo informs Mowgli about it a few scenes later.

The Jungle Book features a good cast of actors who perform well in their roles, and a realistic visual style with varying locations and moods. The story isn’t as tragically ironic as Rudyard Kipling’s book, which may be considered either naïve or fitting depending on analytical points of view. The story itself has its strengths and weaknesses, but in its own right the film is decent to say the least and one is glad one saw it. Where most audiences are likely to take issue, however, is its differences to the animated film it is based on as a remake. Those expecting a tone similar to that of the animated musical are not going to get what they want, given the violence in some scenes, differently represented characterisations in many cases, and the lack of the musical genre. This could be forgivable if the film is thought of as its own entity, except that it makes a number of references to the cartoon that it is, by definition, based on. From a critical point of view it is not in the spirit of that which it is remaking and therefor a bad remake, but from the point of view of an audience viewing it as its own unique thing, however naïve that may be, while it is a flawed picture it is never unenjoyably so. It is well acted, well designed, emotive, dramatic, and recognisable in its story and music. A good effort, even if the expectations were misunderstood.

The Huntsman: Winter's War

Cedric Nicolas-Troyan’s The Huntsman: Winter’s War is proof that not only did Universal Pictures have a Frozen phase, but also they haven’t gotten over it yet, colliding the evil queen from the Brothers Grimm fairytale of Snow White with the Snow Queen from Hans Christian Anderson’s book of the same name. Produced by Joe Roth, the same producer of Robert Stromberg’s Maleficent (2014), which rewrote Disney’s greatest and simplest of villains (whose name means evil) into a good guy in a film with uncanny similarities to the themes and plot of Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck’s Frozen (2013). Are we sensing a pattern?

Chris Hemsworth gives a good performance of a charming and likeable hero, having understandably progressed from the contrasting representation of the character’s outlook and emotional state in the first film. Right from the beginning, the writing (and Hemsworth’s performance) portrays the character in this way, such as through his building rapport with children and his sense of humour interacting with other characters. That and his voice is deep and relaxing.

Introduced to the sequel/prequel is Jessica Chastain as Sara, Eric’s fellow Huntress and presumed-dead wife. Chastain portrays a confident, even cocky heroine, but it is notable how she conveys her character contrasting between early in the film and later. At first, she and Eric seem head-over-heels in love, but later on she has a bitterer and perhaps even traumatized outlook, but maintaining chemistry with Hemsworth’s character as their romantic arc goes on.

Emily Blunt plays as Freya, “the Ice Queen” (although she’s still supposed to be the Snow Queen). All future criticisms about the character aside, Blunt gives a fantastic performance as a cold, frighteningly steely yet sympathetic villain with moments of mother-like gentleness. She conveys the character’s mood following her tragic past so well throughout the picture.

Freya’s goal in this film is much the same as Ravenna’s in the first film: to take over the world one kingdom at a time. Her motivation is a little questionable though. She loses her baby in the first act, so she raises an army of warriors from childhood and refers to them as her children, which gives the audience a sense of her psychology that lends itself to the character’s sympathetic aspects. However, it doesn’t necessarily explain why she defected from her sister’s empire to start her own.

Of the seven dwarves from Snow White and the Huntsman, only one, Nion (Nick Frost), returns, accompanied by Gryff (Rob Bryton) and later by female dwarves Mrs. Bromwyn (Sheridan Smith) and Doreena (Alexandra Roach). Nion and Doreena’s minimalist but admittedly pleasant romance, contrasted by Gryff and Bromwyn’s humorous distain for one another, also contrasts to Eric and Sara’s marital problems.

Also returning to the sequel is the evil queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron). Her character in The Huntsman is a little different from when in Snow White and the Huntsman. Charlize Theron’s conveyance of angry outbursts in the first film was a bit hammy, but that was part of the charm of her portraying an evil queen gone mad with power. It certainly wasn’t a bad performance, as she appeared creepy, composed and at times sympathetic. In The Huntsman, she seems just as powerful and ruthless, but her outbursts, if any, aren’t as enjoyably over-the-top or intense. Her motivation seems less with being the fairest of them all or living forever – since she seems to have these bases covered with her glamorous design and ghost-like being – but rather to assume and maintain political power. With that, added to her new particular powers, Ravenna somewhat feels like a comic book movie supervillain.

It’s hard not to be reminded of other films while looking at the visual design, particularly surrounding the Ice Queen Freya. To its credit, it does show that she has victims encased in ice, like in Anderson’s book, although it is ultimately not as terrifyingly consequential. Her icy throne room looks somewhat similar to that of the White Witch from Andrew Adamson’s film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), but, to be fair, with a more beautiful look and serene feel to it. She also rides what looks like a white bear (or a warg from Lord of the Rings) reminiscent of the polar bears that pulled the White Witch’s chariot at the end of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. And then there are Freya’s ice powers. Like Elsa from Frozen, they don’t make a lot of sense; for example, her ability to use ice to create vivid illusions, and her power to create and see through the eyes of sentient owls made of snow.

An addition to the setting of this fictional world is the short buildup to and appearance of goblins at a point during the journey. The goblins are given a design that is good and original. One asks, however, if goblins can evidently craft arrows and armour out of gold, why they never use them in their attack on the heroes.

The storytelling is fairly done. Whereas the first film was based on an existing story, the setup and structure of the sequel – two warriors and a group of dwarves encountering goblins with tar for blood to find a golden magic mirror and stop a queen/witch – makes the story feel like a fairytale in its own right.

The story takes on several romantic subplots, but one feels there is one romantic story that has been left out. The end of the first film implied that the Huntsman was Snow White’s true love (or that he loved her), as it was his kiss that revived her, but they may not have ended up together due their difference in social status. Eric’s initial motivation for taking up his task in The Huntsman seems to be a personal need to protect Snow White. It’s a pity that Kristen Stewart didn’t return to reprise her role as Snow White, in no small part for her portrayal of the character in the first film, but also because it could have made for an interesting love triangle: a grieving widower loves a woman he cannot be with – a woman who reminds him of his wife – but is challenged by the return of said wife, who turns out to be alive.

A peev one might have is the film’s attempt to sequel bait the Huntsman for a third film, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though if the first film should have a closed ending, it should stand to reason that the sequel should be able to do the same without suggesting a continuation.

The Huntsman: Winter’s War, like Snow White and the Huntsman, is not a perfect film, and it leaves some questions in the subtext unanswered, but it has an atmosphere and charm to it that keeps its audience interested. Its actors give such good performances and the film is in no sense short on humour; between Eric’s charm, the romantic subplots and the four bickering dwarves, the film is quite uplifting to sit through. Said qualities, however, do not to detract from the dark tones from the film’s predecessor, keeping tonal and visual consistency between the two films. Its action scenes are energetic, having tension where needed, and the visual design is very beautiful. It has some sentimentality to its context, though this is not necessarily out of place. Overall, The Huntsman: Winter’s War is a welcome experience – great for casual viewership.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel (2013) has been the subject of much debate amongst fans of the iconic fictional hero Superman. In his classic characterisation that has survived for so long, Superman boldly stands for truth, justice and righteousness. Man of Steel has started a franchise that portrays a darker version of the character. While many believe this is a betrayal of Superman and what he stands for, others have argued that an updated version of Superman should reflect society for what it is and not what we wish it to be. Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice delves greatly into the philosophical arguments it poses regarding the series’ portrayal of Superman.

People in the past have argued that Superman is too powerful to be a hero, and that he would be more accurately presented if he were evil. This is untrue. Superman is the embodiment of ideals. The sheer scope of his powers illustrates the strength of these ideals, which can only be benevolently represented if Superman refrains from using them for evil methods. Superman is a representation of good that we can look up to, to inspire us of the best we can become. Therefor, the real challenges he must overcome are ethical ones rather than physical ones. While this is the general principle, it is not to say Superman can’t fail when it comes to ethical decisions or always find solutions that are ethically pleasing, and sometimes they can affect his character in one way or another.

Zack Snyder’s run on the film series takes this in a different direction. In Man of Steel, young Clark Kent saves a bus full of children and his father tells him off for it, saying he should have “Maybe.” let the children die, and as the film goes on Clark causes numerous counts of property damage and endangers people’s lives, though it could be argued that the villains of the film are more directly responsible for any collateral damage that happens. The ending was controversial, arguably having this iteration of Superman earn his value for life rather than possess it innately. In a way, it portrays Superman as a more human character progressing towards his image of a symbol.

Batman v Superman takes its subject matter to a much harsher tone. One segment of the film shows Superman doing things that would normally be associated with him like appearing around the world to rescue people from disasters and saving the day. During this segment, the film poses discussions surrounding how good Superman can actually be. The idea of Superman presented as a metaphor for Jesus has been played around with in the past, but the film puts heavy emphasis on themes surrounding the nature of God and whether or not Superman is objectively a Christ-figure. These themes take up much of the film.

Ultimately, the film drops any ambiguity and argues that absolutes cannot exist, which in regard to the real world is an understandable view. Often times, virtue and morals aren’t as simple as black and white. Superman may be a paragon of goodness but that in no way means he doesn’t have a dark side that comes out under extreme circumstances. The problem is the way the film handles this argument. It tries to enforce this idea that by doing good, Superman inflicts negative consequences on others. That is an illogical moral to put upon one’s audience.

The main premise of the story is a conflict between the heroes Batman and Superman (Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill, respectively) orchestrated by billionaire criminal mastermind Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), which seemingly has very little connection to the themes that this review has focused on so far. A big problem with the buildup to the fight is there is far too little development between the heroes. They meet a grand total of two times before they fight, one of which in their superhero personas, an exchange that can be summed up with:

SUPERMAN: “Don’t pick a fight.”

BATMAN: “No.”

Superman flies away.

It’s clear the two have varying views on morality and how they execute justice. One sets out to save lives out of the goodness of his heart, while the other uses morally compromising methods to bring criminals in. The appeal of a Batman vs. Superman scenario isn’t just Batman spraying Superman with Kryptonite to even the odds. It’s the development that comes from their differing moralities, views and actions leading to their conflict. In the film however, Bruce Wayne simply decides that Superman is his enemy, and most of the buildup is the process by which Batman obtains a supply of Kryptonite to fight with. One of Bruce Wayne’s lines in the movie is, “If there is even a 1% chance that he is our enemy, we have to take it as an absolute certainty.” That is a contradiction.

Batman’s mental state in the comics has been brought into question, and for some time arguments have been made that Batman is classified as an antihero rather than a superhero. The film seems to play around with the idea of Batman’s psychosis through dream sequences and the character’s obsession, which Affleck portrays well with range from sad and somber to intensely determined. In the film, Batman’s motivation is that Superman’s power intimidates him or can be seen as a potential threat. Batman is supposed to be a logical thinker, yet instead of creating a deterrent to keep in reserve against Superman in the unlikely event they do become enemies, he sets out to murder him. As the series portrays a darker version of Superman, it also portrays a darker version of Batman, having him deny he was ever not a criminal and even branding criminals’ skins. The problem is Batman is already a dark character, at least being portrayed as darker in recent films, and performing such extremes is blowing this iteration of the character way out of proportion.

Superman himself is a little underwhelming. Since we’re never given time to know Superman’s personality in the first film, and no time in given in this film to reveal anything new other than a sense of duty, it’s a little hard to get invested in his character. It’s not until something dire affects him personally that he begins to appear interesting.

With darker versions of both our heroes, the film gives us a lighter twist on our main villain, a young Lex Luthor. This character’s eccentricity makes him possibly the most enjoyable part of the movie, seeing as how much Superman and Batman are sticks in the mud. Lex Luthor is usually portrayed as a devious, confident and collected man with a sick charm. Jesse Eisenberg manages to appear generally jovial, sometimes bratty and even awkward, and yet still comes off as foreshadowing and intimidating. Lex Luthor is known for placing his opponents in unwinnable situations, and the movie’s version provides as such. Even as an eccentric youth, Lex Luthor may actually be the most faithfully adapted character in the film.

Generally speaking, the actors are good for their roles, especially the leads Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck and Jesse Eisenberg. Gal Gadot gives an acceptable performance as Wonder Woman, though she appears so scarcely in the film that it’s hard to make a fair assessment. Ben Affleck’s effort into his emotional performance as Bruce Wayne is a refreshing change from that of Christian Bale in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy.

The character and visual design is somewhat hit and miss. Batman’s default costume is nice and simplistic and the armour he dons for his fight with Superman is dynamic and imposing. No real fault there. We live in a time where superhero movies, once bright and optimistic, have become darker and grim, which is commonly reflected in the colours. This film is no exception. Too often the images onscreen, the costumes and settings, are unattractive to look at – sometimes the images are so dark that they’re hard to see. Even Superman’s costume is so dark that it has no chance of standing out. Wonder Woman has a fairly recognised costume, and the special effects used to create Doomsday make him an absolute monster.

Speaking of which, why is Wonder Woman in this movie? She appears a few times in the film, but her only real contribution is to the final battle against Doomsday. Her involvement in this movie, which doesn’t involve her in the title or the premise, and the appearance of other “metahumans” from the DC universe, is systemic of why Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice exists: it is a quick way of getting to the Justice League movie.

Apart from but not excluding the overall story, the film is not especially well written. There are a few examples of clichéd dialogue – in one instance repeating a clichéd line from the first movie – and some of the jokes, however funny they may be, are plot holes. Lois Lane (Amy Adams) starts off useful as an investigator (displaying better detective skills than Batman, it would seem), but becomes a nuisance in the end by having her contributions backfire and resulting in her needing to be rescued. Then there’s the implication that Batman’s cowl is evidently bulletproof from point blank range, and yet his costume is vulnerable to knives. The product placement isn’t as bad as in Man of Steel, but they still wrote a scene where Lois Lane bathes nude in a dingy apartment just so they can advertise Olay. The film repeats Batman’s origin story, the key word being ‘repeat’, because audiences are already aware of Bruce Wayne’s tragic back-story. It’s common knowledge. It seems a superfluous scene when we can just as easily absorb the information of his parents’ death through his visiting their graves, and in much less time than in a slow motion montage sequence.

And then there’s the fight itself between Superman and Batman. A major appeal for audiences of Man of Steel was that it brought hard-hitting and destructive action, which is satisfying to see in film given the scope of Superman’s powers and is something we haven’t seen before with such intensity. Batman has some action scenes beforehand, one in particular a chase scene involving the Batmobile, which draws into question how serious he is about not killing, given the wanton destruction he causes. The fight itself between Batman and Superman is good. The location where it takes place isn’t so impressive, but it is engaging to see how the opponents turn the tables on each other throughout. Though again, while the action is itself engaging, the investment in this fight is tempered by how it has been set up. Superman initially tries to ask Batman to help him. Batman springs a couple of traps on him, which have no effect, and instead of continuing his attempt to reason with him, Superman immediately uses physical force on him and escalates the situation. More fundamental an issue is how little we know about Superman in this series and in this film in particular compromises the investment in the conflict. The resolution to the fight is lazily executed through a revelation, which is possibly playing again to Batman’s psychosis, but, in terms of the story at large, has no connection. The following fight with Doomsday is arguably better, having the heroes work together and showing off how monstrously Doomsday rivals Superman with superhuman speed, strength, amplified heat beams and near-indestructability. If you think the review is giving anything away, it isn’t. The trailers already gave it away. The fight has nothing much to do with the story at large, having it simply be Lex Luthor’s contingency plan in the event that Batman doesn’t kill Superman. Nonetheless, it is a great rush of wanton violence.

A Batman vs. Superman film has been anticipated for over a decade. This was at a time when superhero movies were only beginning to be taken more seriously than they had been in the decade before, and we have since gotten many serious superhero movies that, while not always perfect, are almost universally loved by fans for their visual and dramatic appeal. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice takes itself far too seriously. It is far too dark both visually and in its characterisations, and the story focuses too heavily on spelling out its themes rather than developing what is important to why these two beloved icons should be fighting. Even accepting an ethically challenged Superman such as in Man of Steel, the sequel is grossly mean-spirited.

It can be somewhat difficult to differentiate one’s personal preference regarding the representation of Superman, and in this case Batman too, from what is genuinely negative about the representation itself. The ingredients are there in the original character to make a darker version, but this series and this film in particular puts so much emphasis on making the characters themselves darker rather than creating a darker tone to surround or challenge them, so much so that it makes the experience unpleasant. There are plenty of superheroes and fictional characters in general that reflect the world realistically. That is not what Superman or Batman’s characters are about. They are different representations of good and of morality conveyed through heroism. Of course, ideals can be challenged, and that is by no means a bad subject matter for Superman. But the way in which they are represented, the way in which this story is told, does not do them justice. And no amount of amazing action scenes can make up for that.