Ah, the remake. I have to admit, I’ve never been a fan
myself, mostly because remakes often pale in comparison to their predecessors.
Recently, however, Disney’s remakes have fared rather well in terms of
garnering positive audience responses. Sure, they’re not for everybody (I, for
one, am still rather opposed to remakes on the whole – they simply don’t do a
lot for me, personally), but you could do far worse than watching one of Disney’s
recent rehashes. The Jungle Book, an
adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s Mowgli stories, is the latest of Disney’s canon to receive the ‘remake treatment’,
and it has, as of yet, garnered high praise indeed. But is it as good as the
1967 classic of the same name?
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| The Jungle Book, Disney, 2016 |
The plot is obviously a familiar one. It follows Mowgli
(Neel Sethi), a ‘man cub’ discovered by Bagheera (Ben Kingsley), a panther, who
takes him to be raised by a pack of wolves, led by Akela (Giancarlo Esposito).
After Shere Khan (Idris Elba) arrives and threatens to kill the man cub, Mowgli
chooses to flee, and Bagheera encourages him to find and reside in the man
village. Along the way, Mowgli meets Kaa the snake (Scarlett Johansson), Baloo
the bear (Bill Murray) and orangutan King Louie (Christopher Walken), who
demands he give him the secret to ‘the red flower’ (fire) – a nice, if slightly overcooked, recurring
motif alluding to the original movie.
Firstly, the visuals are indeed sublime, as can be expected
from a live action/CG adaptation. The problem is that there’s no subtlety. From
beginning to end, we’re carried from one action scene to another, without good
reason. Everything in the original movie maintained symbolic undertones –
something this remake manages to almost overlook completely. Even the ending – which
originally saw Mowgli take his place in the man village – is completely changed
for the remake, which, story-wise, is a major problem. The narrative is
supposed to follow Mowgli’s coming of age, his eventual arrival at
the man village representing his maturity. The final scene in the remake sees
Mowgli contentedly embracing life in the jungle, which misses the point
entirely. The film instead just peters out without concluding properly.
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| The Jungle Book, Disney, 2016 |
Besides the visuals, the only other positive aspect worthy
of a mention is the acting, which is decent. Neel Sethi does a tremendous job
in the role of Mowgli, especially considering the fact that the only other cast
members are computer generated. The voice acting is also acceptable, however
there are some notably obscure casting choices, the strangest perhaps being the
film’s antagonist Shere Khan, voiced by Idris Elba, whose refined English
accent drains the character of any credible sinisterness. Put simply, he’s just
not menacing enough. Compare this with the likes of the original 1967 voice
actor George Sanders and there’s just no competition. And Scarlett Johansson as
Kaa is pointless. In terms of the narrative, even the character is pointless,
as she serves no purpose to the plot whatsoever. Another bizarre addition to
the voice cast is Christopher Walken as the surprisingly creepy King Louie, the
power-crazy orangutan. I’ve nothing against Walken as an actor, but in this
role he’s simply himself incarnated in the body of an orangutan, which was a
peculiar decision, especially considering his inevitable rendition of a frankly
ill-placed musical number in homage to the 1967 classic. The song falls flat
completely and has no place in what is otherwise a serious narrative.
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| The Jungle Book, Disney, 2016 |
This brings me on to another major issue I have with the
movie – it lacks direction. I’ve no issue with King Louie being represented in
a more menacing and villainous fashion than his appearance in the original
animated film (he is, after all, an antagonist), but his presentation is
hilariously overblown. At one point, he even roars like a lion. And, to
reiterate, his rendition of ‘I Wanna Be Like You’, along with Bill Murray’s
version of ‘The Bare Necessities’, just doesn’t fit, simply because it’s
unclear what the filmmakers were trying to achieve. On the one hand, the remake
depicts a far darker, grittier adaptation of Kipling’s Mowgli stories, but on
the other it tries to pay homage to the original by integrating musical numbers
that just do not sit with the film’s tone. The talking animals, too, range from
the frighteningly realistic to cutesy, cuddly and ‘Disney-fied’. The realistic
graphics and the voices that accompany them do not always match, and some are
downright cringe-worthy. Some might say they’re cute, but the cuddly wolf cubs
are frankly vomit-inducing.
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| The Jungle Book, Disney, 2016 |
As expected, this film is a visual extravaganza, but it otherwise
bears little value. The actors do a decent job, and the animation is very
impressive. Story-wise, however, the film gets a bit lost in the jungle, so to
speak. Consequently the narrative is underwhelming, and ultimately
unsatisfying. The fact that this film has audiences in awe is somewhat
concerning. Computer animation improves constantly; without a consistent
narrative, any appraisal that focuses primarily on a film’s visuals calls its
lasting appeal into question. For the time being, however, it’s worth seeing if
only for its technical aspects, but a bare necessity, it is not.
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