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| Directed by Jon Favreau Written by Justin Marks |
Alo Party Peoples.
The Jungle Book is the kind of movie that has to be seen in a theater. Normally it isn't worth it to go into detail about the 3D of a 3D movie, not everyone is going to see the movie in 3D, and audiences have mostly caught onto the fact that only movies made in 3D tend to look good in 3D, but the effects work is essesntial to The Jungle Book's success. Despite being shot entirely at a studio backlot in downtown Los Angeles, The Jungle Book will still transport the audience to the jungles of India, where they'll find a boy raised by a pack of wolves under the watchful eye of a panther that must leave the pack on a journey to manhood after a tiger decides that he will become a threat.
The Jungle Book is Disney at its best, taking an old beloved story, and lovingly retelling it with all the style and majesty of Golden Age Hollywood and the technical prowess of the modern film industry. It's fitting that Disney has started to do so with their own backlog, recreating their 90s Renaissance with Frozen, creating the embodiment of the Disney fairy tale with Cinderella, and now doing an old-school family adventure movie that has enough nods to the original and Disney's history to satisfy nostalgia buffs without feeling like a rehash, and also is just this big, sweeping spectacle that just works wonders in the moment.
It's the kind of use of IMAX that Avatar promised and Gravity started to flesh out, and The Jungle Book has finally realized the dream of fully transporting the audience to a completely artificial environment without them realizing it's artificial, and not caring if they do. You aren't watching the animals, you're with them. Director Jon Favreau has enough restraint to realize that 3D is generally more immersive when it's drawing the audience in then when it's projecting out towards the audience. So the jungle is a majestic, lush, breathing creation that draws the audience in, the animals move with a real sense of weight, the kid is the only live-action actor in the entire film, and he doesn't stick out at all. It's a near perfect visual marvel, movies like this are why we have movie theaters...
...which is why, if you're going to see The Jungle Book, then you have to see it in a theater, and why it's worth it to shell out the extra cash for 3D. In two years, if you're watching it on a television, it isn't going to be as effective at drawing you in, and you'll start to notice the kind of stiff, episodic structure and the occasional tonal whiplash as it tries to strike a balance between the semi-seriousness of the Ruyard Kipling stories and the whimsy of the Disney film, best exemplified when they try to shoehorn the songs in to middling results. Having Bill Murray as Baloo hum the melody to "The Bare Neccessities" is a cute reference, having him then head into a full rendition of it when none of the rest of the movie has been a musical is pushing it, and having Christopher Walken sing "I Wan'na Be Like You" in the middle of what's supposed to be a serious moment leading up to the climax is just kind of awkward.
But those are all things you only think of once the movie's ended and you're driving home, as it's happening The Jungle Book comes damn near close to being perfect. Go see it.
Have a nice day,
Greg.B
FINAL RATING: 4.5/5
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