A rejuvenating touch to a Disney classic, Favreau moves us with a darker, yet memorable, telling of the man-cub Mowgli’s adventure.
There’s always that unease that comes with adaptations or remakes. Will the same thing work again, or just backfire and be a flop? Not gonna lie, we had these very uncertainties with Disney’s latest adaptation, “The Jungle Book (2016)”. Glad to say, director Jon Favreau made us remember just why we loved the 1967 Disney animated classic to begin with.
A thing that strikingly sets Favreau’s version apart from the original is the added grit and darker moments that are incorporated, which adds food for thought for the audience. We appreciate how Favreau took into consideration the theme of rejection and isolation of an orphan, highlighting this more in his movie and making it more relatable to the audience. Instead of just drawing material from the first Disney film, Favreau made sure to pay homage to the original 1894 text by Rudyard Kipling by putting a twist to the novel’s ‘Law of the Jungle’, and creating his own version that is pretty catchy to recite, if we do say so ourselves.
Though we were not really sold at the beginning, it didn’t take us long to take a liking to 12-year-old Neel Sethi. We liked how unlike the animated film, more focus was put into highlighting Mowgli’s unique traits, which not only was crucial in him figuring out his place in the jungle, but also made Mowgli more interesting as a character and more likeable to us.
So, although the modest boy from New York says that he was merely just doing whatever Favreau asked of him, we think he deserves a bit more credit than he gives himself. Plus, he’s just adorable as Mowgli!
According to Favreau on Twitter during a live Q&A session,
@MonkeyBoy1138 None are real. All are CGI. The whole movie was shot in downtown LA. #askjunglebook
— Jon Favreau (@Jon_Favreau) September 15, 2015
Hang on, no outdoor shooting at all? With just some sets, puppets, a boy, and a ton of visual effects? Pretty much. As cast member Kingsley credits, one of the greatest things about Favreau is that he certainly does not lack “a diminished imagination”. Much research was done by Favreau beforehand to make his jungle as realistic as it could be. Other than pouring out time to study the practices of the Indian villagers to give some authenticity to Mowgli’s many ‘tricks’, the director paid close attention to the movement of each of the jungle animals to make their actions and behaviours as fluid and lifelike as possible.
All that research, with the animation and VFX skills he had picked up from his previous works Iron Man (2008) and Elf (2003), Favreau brought The Jungle Book world to life. Two beautiful sceneries that definitely stuck in our memories were the dilapidated yet still majestic-looking ‘palace’ of King Louie, the wet, slippery home of the snake Kaa deep in the treacherous jungle, and Baloo and Mowgli swimming down the river happily singing their version of the Disney favourite, ‘Bare Necessities’. (Which, may we add, got us singing too.)
For a world constructed completely out of CGI and takes from a soundstage, The Jungle Book has us very impressed. Apart from being entertained by Mowgli and friends’ fun antics in the jungle, in just 105 minutes, Favreau managed to make us fear for our lives, sad when there was grieving and conflict, and most of us, gain new insights.
DANamic.ORG Rating: 4/5
Photos courtesy of Disney