Jon Favreau | 106 mins | Blu-ray (3D) | 1.78:1 | USA & UK / English | PG / PG
One of the successes that has convinced Disney to remake basically their entire animated back catalogue in live-action, Jon Favreau’s take on Disney’s adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s stories barely counts as “live-action” really: the vast majority of it is animated — often the only real bits are Mowgli and some (but by no means all) of the props and scenery he interacts with — but it’s done to be photo-real and so we pretend that’s live-action.
Whatever you want to call it, the visuals are stunning. It’s incredible stuff by the animators, though also by Favreau and DP Bill Pope to make all that hard work look great as a film too — they put special effort into making sure the CGI was properly lit, etc. And I reckon it’s even better in 3D. Presented in a screen-filling 1.78:1 ratio, unconstrained by the black bars of your nowadays-standard 2.35:1, it honestly feels like a window into another world. You sometimes see reviews of good 3D that say “you feel like you could reach out and touch it”, which I’ve always taken as A Thing People Say rather than an actual inclination, but at one point I did feel like I wanted to reach out and stroke Baloo’s fur, he looked so soft. The end credit sequence (a kind of pop-up book routine) looks particularly great in 3D, which helps to sell the miniaturised dimensions.
Anyway, the film itself. Disney’s Jungle Book is such a well-known childhood classic that I don’t imagine you need me to recap its plot, though this version doesn’t ape it one-for-one. When Favreau was first brought on board the story treatment Disney had in development was much closer to Kipling’s work, including none of the changes Disney made when they adapted it before (i.e. adding songs and the character of King Louie), as well as being more violent, aimed at a PG-13 rating. So it was Favreau who decided it should be closer to the Disney classic, aiming to find the sweet spot between the two styles. I think he’s nailed that, mixing in enough that’s familiar from the animation with a bit more seriousness derived from Kipling.
That said, I wasn’t wholly convinced by the use of the songs. The rendition of Bare Necessities is disappointingly truncated, though at least fits in context. Conversely, King Louie’s song, I Wan’na Be Like You, is so out of place that I found the sequence kind of uncomfortable. Weirdly, its reprise at the start of the end credits is great. There it’s followed by Trust In Me, which isn’t included in the film proper but might actually have worked there.
Still, the film as a whole functions well; surprisingly well, one might even say. You may remember the Rotten Tomatoes score for it went crazy when it came out, hiding the high 90s — it ended up at 95%. And it’s the perfect example of why Rotten Tomatoes doesn’t score a film’s quality, but does score the chance that you’ll enjoy a film. I’m not sure many people would think this is a “9.5 out of 10” kind of film, but one there’s a 95% chance you’ll think is good? Yeah.
The Jungle Book is available on Netflix UK from today.
100Films.co.uk 
I really quite enjoyed this. Watched it on a rental stream, so I’m sure it would only look better on blu ray disc. I think you nailed it regards the films quality and reputation- yes its a very enjoyable film and well made, but it’s not one, strangely, that I’ve been drawn back to for another watch. My only observation on this is that it’s perhaps fairly lightweight and doesn’t really engage the heart. At least, in my case I was perhaps too distracted by the amazing visuals. Probably the best of the recent animation to live action Disney adaptations though- at least with the cgi tech it looked as if it had a genuine reason to exist seperate from the original animation.
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Yeah, it got the level of faithfulness vs reinvention pretty spot on, I think. It’ll be interesting to see if Favreau plays it as loose with The Lion King. Somehow, I expect not.
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