Verdict:
Sher Khan is bad-ass. It is important to get your main villain right, and this film gets its villain right. Idris Elba has a spotty reputation, but his performance here is enigmatic. It is unfortunate that I cannot say the same for everyone. Out of the good guys, only Balou is fun. Kaa, played very seductively by Scarlett Johansson, only shows up for one fairly short scene. King Louie, the good old mafia boss, was also pretty cool, but he too is not around for long enough. The kid himself was a little annoying, due to no fault of his own. He was asked to sell typical movie dialogue but he is 12. Kids should talk and act like kids. Under the circumstances, he did well. The other characters are just kind of…cardboard. It seems that, apart from Balou, all the fun characters are villains, and they get far less screen time than the good guys.
The CG effects are as good the trailer sells it. I would not call Bagheera photo-realistic, as some have done, but the modern lighting engine does its job, creating realistic sunlight and nighttime scenes. Who’s to say how well this CGI will age? No matter how sharp it looks, no matter how good the lighting is, as time goes by, the effects get better, and our eyes will probably adjust to the new level. Since The Jungle Book is nothing but CGI, what will people think about this movie 20 years from now. The reality is probably that a movie like this is not meant to age for that long and will be remade by then, maybe more than once. And that brings us to the somewhat sad conclusion.
This film has little to no impact and little to no lasting power. The Disney animated version from 1967 had both, as many still remember it fondly after all those years. You can watch the original today and have as much fun as the audiences did back then, but this new photo-realistic portrayal will not remain in memory for long because nothing besides the graphics and Sher Khan stands out, and the graphics may lose their appeal with time.
It’s fun to hear the old songs be given new life. In fact, the remakes sound much better on a technical level than the originals. Scarlet Johanson can sing Trust in Me for me any time.
The Jungle Book is an entertaining and well-executed animation that is well worth watching now.