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Kipling-Faithful Jungle Book Film a Worthy Endeavour


‘A worthy endeavour’ is perhaps the best way to describe Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle, the new Netflix-released Jungle Book adaptation directed by Andy Serkis. Being a public domain property, Rudyard Kipling’s classic collection of stories and poems about life in the jungles of imperial India have been adapted, rewritten, and reconstructed so many times that we’ve just been numbed to them. And additionally, most versions follow the trajectory set by Disney in their 1967 animated film, which strips away many of the deeper, darker themes of the book in favour of emphasizing the whimsical adventures and bohemian lifestyle of its characters. Which is why it was promising to hear for a few years now that Andy Serkis’ interpretation was going to stick closer to the source material in its focus on Mowgli, the “man-cub” protagonist of many of the stories, and his identity conflict. And while that is certainly true, the movie doesn’t quite stick the landing it needed.
An attack on a human family by the tiger Shere Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch) leaves only a child alive.  Rescued by the panther Bagheera (Christian Bale) and raised in a wolf pack, the boy Mowgli (Rohan Chand) eventually learns of his human heritage and the threat his being in the jungle invites from Shere Khan, forcing the boy to decide whether to join the human village or stay in the jungle.
Produced at Serkis’ Imaginarium Productions, it’s no surprise that Mowgli makes heavy use of performance capture for its animal characters. Serkis himself is the poster boy for this technology, and has time and again proven how useful it is and that it’s no inhibitor of an actors’ performance, as his incredible turn in War for the Planet of the Apes last year shows. It’s not always easy to make performance capture characters look lifelike next to real people and environments though, and there is sometimes a notable dissonance in this movie. Unlike the apes Serkis has played previously, many of the animals of The Jungle Book don’t have a facial composition equitable to human actors, and the result is some unconvincing appearances. While Bagheera and Baloo (Serkis) are mostly okay, Shere Khan and Akela (Peter Mullan) half the time look more like characters escaped from a CG-animated film –ironic considering these same characters looked better in the 2016 Disney version where they were purely animated.
Regardless of the technological inefficiencies, which are surely a by-product of the films’ too-modest budget, the performances are very good. Bale and Cumberbatch obviously bring a great amount of gravitas to the two felines. Though Shere Khan is underdeveloped, Bagheera is more interestingly characterized as Mowgli’s unofficial guardian, too traditionally ensconced in the Law of the Jungle, but with a history relevant to his desire to see Mowgli rejoin his people. Cate Blanchett is an effective though underutilized Kaa, both her sex and size seemingly borrowed from Disney’s last effort. And the Baloo of this movie is not the laid-back carefree hedonist Disney fans are familiar with which is immensely refreshing. Serkis plays him with a gruff South London accent much closer to the book, where he is a sometimes harsh instructor of Mowgli and the wolf cubs; and is actually portrayed as a sloth bear for a change. However the movie is called Mowgli, its focus appropriately on the titular man-cub and his struggles and burdens. Thankfully Rohan Chand makes for a very good live-action performer to ground all the talking animals and convey competently the weight of his character.
But the attention given over to Mowgli comes at the expense of fleshing out the larger world of these characters. Indeed, the jungle they inhabit seems relatively small in scale. Naomie Harris and Eddie Marsan, wonderful as they are for Mowgli’s wolf parents, are given only as much screen-time and personality as Shere Khan’s hyena lackey (Tom Hollander), and Jack Reynor seems a wasted talent as Mowgli’s Brother Wolf (Serkis’ own son Louis voices a more prominent albino pup called Bhoot). The movies’ awful pacing renders even figures essential to Mowgli’s character arc, notably Messua, played by an excellently cast Frieda Pinto, severely underdeveloped. This is a two and a half hour story contained within a one hundred minute movie. The bones and structure are all there, but only the barest substance outside of Mowgli himself. Matthew Rhys’ Lockwood is a completely forgettable one-note villain, the elephant Haithi makes a cameo appearance before playing a major role in an underwhelming climax, and the story as a whole feels much too clean by the end, despite retaining some of the darker tone of Kiplings’ books.
I had high hopes for Mowgli given the talent involved, Serkis’ commitment to it, and just the freshness of having a significant version of The Jungle Book that’s not Disney. However it’s only marginally better than Disney’s last remake. And while this movie has a more unique outlook and actually knows what it wants to be, it can’t quite compete with Disney’s visual excellence and grand scope. It’s inordinately rushed and doesn’t devote necessary time to investing the audience in its world or stakes. Still, a love of The Jungle Book is quite apparent on screen, and that’s not something easily overlooked.

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