The jungle is eternal, purrs a panther the second most charismatic black panther to hit screens in 2018, for those of you keeping count to his little brother, a boy with limpid eyes and long back hair. This large, nurturing feline is referring to the home that provides them with renewable sustenance, shelter and the occasional slithering-reptile narrator. He might also be talking about Rudyard Kiplings durable, endlessly adaptable 1894 collection of stories revolving around blessed beasts and children: the aforementioned big brother Bagheera, the boisterous bear Baloo, the cunning python Kaa and the deadly tiger Shere Khan. Oh, yeah, and the man-cub Mowgli, an Indian child raised by wolves and destined to be the bridge between folks who walk on two legs and his furrier friends who stalk, creep and amble along on four.
Dubbed The Jungle Book, Kiplings anthology has come to represent most of whats great about the British authors boys-adventure storytelling, as well as whats not-so-great about his 19th-century worldview. And it, too, is an eternal fixture on the pop-culture landscape. One generation knew it as a rousing Korda brothers colonialist-exotica epic; another as a Disney cartoon with catchy tunes; another as a Christmas-season blockbuster; and still another as a live-action, A-list adaptation of the Mouse Ears Inc.s animated classic. Motion-capture maestro Andy Serkiss take on the material may have unwittingly become a victim of bad timing, bad luck, competing studios, cold feet, changing industry trends and make-money-moves deals. (Theres a hell of a backstory here.) But you can say this for the actor-turned-directors serious, stone-cold sober interpretation of Mowgli & Cos rousing narrative: It is not your fathers Jungle Book. More like your great-grandfathers.
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Both kid-friendly and prepubescent-nightmare-inducing, Mowgli laden with the unfortunate, no-favors-done subtitle Legend of the Jungle is an attempt to keep the source materials more feral, animalistic instincts intact. It isnt one of those dark revisionist redos that have been all the rage for the past decade (I love Alice in Wonderland, but I sure wish it was more bleak and mall-Goth-y . Here you go!). But the movie starts with Mowglis mother and father being torn to shreds by a tiger, an event which is not seen but still presented as horrifically as possible, and it only gets more bloodthirsty from there. Theres a kill-or-be-killed vibe throughout, even when the tween Mowgli (Rohan Chand) isnt being actively threatened by a chops-licking Shere Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch). You never forget that the man-cub is a little boy lost in a world of creatures, and even the most protective of the bunch will fight tooth-and-claw if they have to. We dont mean figuratively, either.
Its a Jungle Book reading that prizes predatory realism, in other words, albeit one presented with CGI bells and mo-cap whistles that run the gamut from impressive bear necessities, indeed! to was this directly lifted from a PlayStation 2 video game cut scene? The celebrity voicework is equally bipolar. Christian Bales panting, stentorian Bagheera (you assume the actor lived among panthers for months and grew a fine coat of actual ebony fur in preparation for the part) and Andy Serkiss own Ursidae-raised-in-Londons-East-End Baloo bring the soul as well as sound and fury; Cumberbatchs killer Khan, meanwhile, is all aural mustache-twirling la his Smaug from The Hobbit and the idea of Cate Blanchett hissing through Kaas consonants is better in conception rather than execution.
Once Mowgli makes his way to the man village after an abduction-by-monkeys incident, a wounding and an exile, youre ready for some actual Homo sapien interactions. The movie gives the young hero a maternal figure in the form of Messua, a kindly woman played by Freida Pinto and reduced to a glorified cameo; we also get John Lockwood, an archetypal Great White Hunter who views the jungle as nothing but trophy-room fodder. Its the exchanges between this representation of a for-sport predator, one who The Americans Matthew Rhys manages to make both dignified and pathetic, and the boy that come off as the most interesting a break from the mo-cap Serkis Maximus that make up the majority of the spectacle.
Listen: No one would dispute that the actor-turned-director has revolutionized the form, or that he understands the importance of performance whether hes portraying Planet of the Apes chimp equivalent of Che Guevara or calling the shots. (Serkiss 2017 directorial debut Breathe, made in between production stop-starts for this project, may be upper-crust schmaltz, but its also a primo actors playground.) Its simply that the effect becomes tiresome as time goes by with Kiplings anthropomorphic menagerie, even with the best thespians on board. And as the entire third act slouches toward grudge matches and vengeance quests, Mowgli quits reaching for the peaks and simply settles into a familiar uncanny-valley groove. Theres much to gasp and fawn over here, and too much forgettable filler. But at least audiences have a chance to see it, so Serkis and his collaborators can finally turn the page on this particular book.