The Jungle Book (1994)

From what I can tell this adaptation of Kipling’s “The Jungle Book” isn’t really an adaptation.  The filmmakers used pieces of the original story and Disney’s famous animated version but pretty much made up their own tale for the most part.  It’s about a dude named Mowgli (Jason Scott Lee (Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Soldier) who was raised in the jungles of India by wolves and a bear and…hold on a sec.  Those animals aren’t native to India.  Oh whatever, so anyway he’s been in the wilderness for so long that he forgot what it means to be a civilized man, including speaking any recognizable language, and acts like his wild animal brothers and sisters.  He eventually stumbles upon English colonists and they try to get him to behave like a domesticated human again while also attempting to pump him for info on hidden treasure.

The story is surprisingly well crafted.  They start with the familiar Jungle Book shit that you’ve seen from Disney before to get you on board but then they change everything up to focus on Mowgli’s re-entry into society and the challenges that that brings (interestingly this version was also made by Disney, sure it was a totally different era in the company’s history but still they decided not to do a straight live action version of their animated feature and I appreciate that).  Probably the deepest the film goes is in one particularly thought-provoking scene between Mowgli and the villain, played by the brilliant Cary Elwes (Shadow of the Vampire, Dracula (1992)), where Mowgli can’t grasp why someone would want to kill another human if it wasn’t for the purpose of gathering food or defending yourself.  Elwes doesn’t really have an answer for him except “…because he’s your enemy”.

There are times when the story is incredibly rushed though.  Like Mowgli learns to speak English and adopt English customs in what seems like only a week.  Or he discovers mountains of treasure in Monkey City and then suddenly runs into the modern English folks in what feels like the same afternoon.  This was all done for the purpose of simply moving things along and in this case I don’t mind it that much.  The love triangle between Mowgli, the love interest (Lena Headey (Dredd)) and the bad guy is constructed quickly but takes its time once you know where everyone stands.  And that’s what’s impressive.  The whole middle of the picture is completely focused on these three playing off of each other and holds back on integrating pointless action scenes.  I got invested.

The other very strong aspect of the film is the cinematography.  This is one fuckin’ pretty picture man.  Juan Ruiz Anchia (Glengarry Glen Ross) did a gorgeous job capturing the beauty of India (they did actually film there) by keeping lighting and colors vibrant.  There’s a lot of movement with the camera too but it’s always graceful and makes the movie feel a little more important than it actually is.

The production designer, Allan Cameron (Showgirls, Starship Troopers), also makes the film feel bigger and more elegant with the great costumes and ridiculous set design.  He nailed turn of the century India in the most fantastic (and I’m sure totally unrealistic) way that you picture it in your mind.  I absolutely love the way this thing looks.

Bad director Stephen Sommers (Deep Rising) did this and I knew that going in.  I was prepared for something way less thoughtful like The Mummys he did but, shit, I gotta give him credit for making a damn fine movie, his best that I’ve seen.  However I wanna say that he was probably limited with the budget and this forced him to make something with less action and more character development than he probably would’ve done otherwise (watch his other pictures and you’ll see what I mean).  That didn’t stop him from inserting two closeup shots of a horrible looking fuckin’ CGI snake though.

So overall wow, this is actually a really good movie.  There are so many neat things in here like a real long stretch with no dialogue where it’s Mowgli interacting with animals and humans and it’s crystal clear what he’s communicating, they managed to use real live animals (with one exception, see above) for the characters that required it instead of some sort of animation or animatronics or etc, and the casting is spot on.    

If you don’t mind anthropomorphized animals (which is a small part of the film but when it’s in there it’s at full bore) and the story abandoning the Jungle Book you know for its own thang then there’s a real cool picture here about what it means to be human, or something.

Oh and you also have to be ok with a body count that’s astonishingly high for a family movie.  There are six confirmed kills, including an asshole that gets buried alive, and then another at least seven unconfirmed deaths (mostly humans murdering other humans by the way).  Oh right and torture.  I guess you gotta be alright with that too.  Hey, this ain’t your father’s Jungle Book.