What with Disney turning their animated classics into live-action films now, "The Jungle Book" is the last movie I think Disney would choose to make live action. Since "The Jungle Book" only stars one human character while all the other characters are animals, it just seemed kind of pointless for them to turn it into live action since all the animals and backgrounds would be completely CGI while only Mowgli and some set pieces would be the only things actually there. However, to my everlasting surprise, not only did a child actor convince me that the CGI'd animals who weren't really there were actually alive and in front of him, not only did the backgrounds convince me that this actually looked like it was filmed in an actual jungle and not on a green screen in an L.A. studio, but this is Disney's first success at making one of their classics not just OK or good, but absolutely fantastic!
In the story of "The Jungle Book," the man-cub, Mowgli, is played by newcomer Neel Sethi. Abandoned by his family as an infant, Mowgli is brought in by a family of wolves led by Akela (Giancarlo Esposito) and Raksha (Lupita Nyong'o), and is mentored by Bagheera the panther (Ben Kingsley). However, Shere Khan the tiger (Idris Elba), feared by everyone, announces that the man-cub will die at his hands when the jungle's peace treaty comes to an end. Bagheera then has to get Mowgli to the main village, which is the only place where he'll be safe from Shere Khan. From there, Mowgli comes across the hypnotic snake Kaa (Scarlett Johansson), the ape King Louie (Christopher Walken), and his inevitable best friend Baloo the bear, played brilliantly by Bill Murray.
I think these are some of the greatest casting choices I've ever seen. Giancarlo Esposito, Lupita Nyong'o, and Ben Kingsley all give very well-handled performances. Idris Elba is terrifying in his portrayal of one of Disney's best villains. Even though she's briefly in the movie, Scarlett Johansson gives a very unsettling and creepy portrayal of Kaa. Christopher Walken as King Louie is simply hilarious; I couldn't stop laughing when he was singing "I Wanna be Like You." A shout-out is happening here though Bill Murray as Baloo is some of the best work I've seen him do in a very long time. Bill Murray in this movie is the same Bill Murray that we all know and love. The same Murray who we know from "Ghostbusters," "Groundhog Day," "Caddyshack," etc. Bill Murray is well known for improvising a good chunk of his dialogue in his films, and even though I haven't seen any reports of him actually improvising lines, many of the things he says to Mowgli, Bagheera, and King Louie sound like he made them up right on the spot. I wanna give another shout-out to Neel Sethi as Mowgli because this kid is looking at nothing but the whole time it really looks like he's staring at something. There have been adult actors who fail at that. For example, you could tell in "Jurassic World" at some points that Bryce Dallas Howard wasn't really looking at a velociraptor; and here we have this kid who has never been in a film in his life and is pulling off looking at CGI so well.
If I were to think of any problems the film has, the scene with Kaa felt out of place and could've been better handled instead of just being used for exposition's sake. The scene itself was well made but I think there could've been a smoother transition in and out of that scene. Even if you don't like Jon Favreau's movies, you can't deny they're always visually amazing to look at. The first two "Iron Man" movies, "Zathura," "Cowboys & Aliens," and now this.
On the whole, I highly recommend "The Jungle Book." Its visuals are great, the performances are spot on, and some scenes actually manage to pay homage to "The Lion King." Which means we now have to have a live-action "Lion King" movie.
