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.