Though “The Jungle Book” largely was shot in a Los Angeles warehouse, it seriously looks like a beautiful journey through the Indian jungle. Every leaf is too real to be from a computer. Every animal moves like the beasts you’ve seen at the zoo. It’s one thing for James Cameron to craft his own vision of an alien planet in “Avatar”; it’s another for director Jon Favreau (“Iron Man”) to deliver CGI-fueled live-action that seems like something out of “Animal Planet.”
Yes, this “Jungle Book” is another take on Rudyard Kipling’s stories about a boy, a bear and a panther trying to survive together in the wild, which you may vaguely recall in its 1967 Disney musical form. The 2016 version is both a lot darker and the rare movie, especially at a time when seemingly every other week brings a new superhero, that delivers a real spectacle—thanks to the combination of gorgeous visuals and Favreau’s action-flick background. As Mowgli (Neel Sethi) runs with wolves, fights Shere Khan the tiger (voiced by Idris Elba) and escapes King Louie the ape (voiced by Christopher Walken), there are plenty of fast-moving scenes that would feel at home in the Marvel universe.
With so much to look at, Favreau and writer Justin Marks (“Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li”!) are wise to keep the story simple, almost mythic. Bagheera the panther (voiced by Ben Kingsley) guides as a narrator and as Mowgli’s mentor, and the story primarily follows Mowgli’s journey of self-discovery. “Don’t you know what you are? I know where you came from,” hisses the great python Kaa (voiced by Scarlett Johansson). Who is he, where did he come from, who are his people—and are all of those questions tied to one truth?
It helps that this tale is perfectly brought to life by some of the industry’s most dynamic voices, including Lupita Nyong’o as Raksha the wolf and Bill Murray as Baloo the bear. In particular, Walken fits wonderfully as the eccentric giant primate; Johansson’s also an easy, smart choice to provide a seductive allure to the hypnotic snake.
Everything rolls along smoothly until the end. The 1967 cartoon (49-years-late spoiler alert) saw Mowgli returning to his kind in the man village, but perhaps Marks thought that was too simple a conclusion to Mowgli’s identity struggle. The alternative fails to address some of the concerns that set the boy’s journey in motion to begin with. Of course, by movie’s end you’re almost too struck by the visuals to even listen to the words.
3 stars (out of four)