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The Jungle Book
A Jon Favreau film
Blaine: My number one reason I was so interested in “The Jungle Book" the ensemble of actors doing the voices of these well known characters in this classic story. I saw it with my friend, James, four days after its release.
Plot (Spoiler Alert)A young boy named Mowgli is learning how to run with the pack of wolves. Mowgli’s story is that he was alone as a infant in the jungle until Bagheera, a black panther, found him and raised him along with the female Indian wolf, Raksha, growing up. One day the peace rock is revealed at a river and the animals have a truce not to hunt. Mowgli is known to the animals as a man cub and he has what they call tricks. He drinks from the water using some kind of shell to pour the water into. Shere Khan, the fearsome tiger, shows up and smells an odor that is man. Shere Khan hates humans for his face has been scared because of them. The wolves defend Mowgli and inform Shere Khan that he is one of them. Shere Khan can’t do anything at the moment while the peace rock is around. But when the river rises and it is gone, he will come after Mowgli. The wolf council discuss how they will solve this problem. Mowgli doesn’t want anyone to get hurt so he informs them that he will go to the man village. Raksha doesn’t want him to go because she loves him like he is her own son. She wants Mowgli to know no matter where he is that he’ll always be her son. Bagheera guides him through the jungle. Elephants pass them and Bagheera and Mowgli must bow to them. Bagheera informs Mowgli that the elephants have made all that belongs in the jungle. They then cross through buffalo, but Bagheera smells Shere Khan and tells Mowgli to run, go north and he’ll catch up with him. Shere Khan comes out of no where and Bagheera holds him off while Mowgli runs. Mowgli jumps onto one of the buffalo and escapes. Shere Khan shows up at the wolves part of the jungle and kills Akela, the leader of the wolves. Shere Khan makes it clear to the other wolves that he wants Mowgli dead. Later Mowgli finds himself in a foggy part of the jungle. Mowgli hears a voice talking to him, but he can’t see who it is. A Indian python named Kaa comes out from the fog and has Mowgli look into her eyes so she can show him a piece of his past. Mowgli is hypnotized and as he is about to be eaten by Kaa, Baloo, the sloth bear, shows up and saves him. In return, Baloo wants Mowgli to get him the honey from the honeycomb. Mowgli uses his tricks to help. Baloo shows Mowgli the fun side of life. Bagheera finally shows up and is not happy that Mowgli using his special tricks. Bagheera stays for the night and tells Mowgli that they must leave first thing in the morning. Mowgli wakes up hearing elephants making noise. The baby elephant has fallen into a pit and the elephants don’t know how to get him out. Mowgli saves the baby elephant by tying a branch around him and have one of the elephants pull him out. The elephants are grateful to Mowgli. Bagheera and Baloo are proud of him. Bagheera informs Baloo that Shere Khan killed Akela and he will stop at nothing until Mowgli is dead. Baloo has to lie to Mowgli by saying he’s means nothing to him and that he just used him to get honey. Mowgli is upset and angry and Baloo feels terrible for saying those words to him. Mowgli climbs up a tree in depression. Monkeys show up, grab Mowgli and take him to their leader, King Louie, a giant ape. King Louie wants fire or as what the animals think of it as a red flower, but Mowgli doesn’t know how to get it. Baloo shows up and distracts Louie and his monkeys while Bagheera sneaks Mowgli out. King Louie sees Bagheera and Mowgli trying to escape, so he sends his army of monkeys after them. Baloo and Bagheera hold off the monkeys and King Louie goes after Mowgli through his temple. Louie asks where would Mowgli go now that Akela is dead. Mowgli doesn’t believe it. Louie’s rampage eventually causes his temple to collapse on top of him. Mowgli makes it out safe and demands to know the truth about Akela. Mowgli wants this to stop. He sneaks into the man village and takes a torch of fire to use as a weapon. Then he runs into the jungle to face Shere Khan. As Mowgli runs through the jungle, sparks of fire fall off the torch and into the ground. All the animals gather at the river for word spreads the red flower is approaching. Mowgli shows up and Shere Khan proves a point of how dangerous man is. Mowgli looks behind him and sees he has caused a fire to the jungle. Mowgli feels terrible at first, but then throws the fire into the river because he wants to prove he is not a threat. Mowgli has nothing to protect him now from Shere Khan, but Baloo, Bagheera, Raksha defend him. Bagheera tells Mowgli that he can fight Shere Khan like a man. Mowgli runs to the fire to lure Shere Khan in. Mowgli goes up a tree and Shere Khan follows him to a weak branch. Mowgli jumps and grabs onto a rope while Shere Khan falls into the fire. Shere Khan is no more. The elephants show up shortly after a put out the fire by diverting the river with Mowgli directing them. The film concludes with Raksha becoming the new leader of the wold pack and Mowgli staying in the jungle with Bagheera and Baloo. 
Blaine: The number one question that was on my mind since the teaser trailer was why is King Louie, the orangutan, giant? But after I watched the special features, I found out that this version of Louie is based off a species that actually existed, but is now extinct called the Gigantopithecus. Jon Favreau said that King Louie never existed in the book and I found that hard to believe because I thought he was and he has been in every version of “The Jungle Book". But because Louie never existed in the book Jon could choose what ever kind of ape like creature he wanted for the film. The production designer found it in his research and suggested it to Jon. King Louie, in this version of “The Jungle Book”, feels more dangerous because of the serious look on his face and seeing the size of him makes me feel like he could crush you like an ant. Baloo is the only character in the film who accepts Mowgli for what he is and allows him to use his manly tricks. But then later when Mowgli saves the baby elephant, I think Bagheera starts to learn to accept Mowgli’s skills if they can be used for good. And then in the end everyone accepts it. For the opening castle at the beginning of “The Jungle Book” that shows this is a movie produced by Walt Disney pictures, is animated instead of CGI and Jon Fareau said it’s part of the film that he is most proud of. When I see that opening it makes me think of the old Disney classics from “Snow White” to “ Dumbo” to "Bambi” to “Jungle Book” for thirty seconds. I think that’s the point of it since making this movie brought back the memories Jon Favreau had when he saw the original animated feature. At the beginning of “Bambi” after the opening credits, it shows the forest and then Jon Favreau and his team thought they should start off “The Jungle Book” by showing the jungle just like what “Bambi” did at the beginning. In the 1967 “Jungle Book” it starts off with a book opening up on blue velvet. It goes into an illustration and then changes into an animated scene. And at the end of the 2016 “Jungle Book” it ends with the book. They decided to make an virtual environment for the set instead of traveling to a location where they could shoot a real jungle. They did however send photographers to an African jungle to shoot photographs and the photos would help the concept artists to think of ideas on how the jungle would like in the film. The CGI in this film is amazing with the animals and the jungle surrounding them. Neel Sethi, the young boy who plays Mowgli, would work with puppets at times to interact with while they were shooting. The late Garry Shandling, who is a friend of Jon Favreau’s did the voice of the Indian crested porcupine before he died. In the scene where Mowgli is getting the honey for Baloo and three small animals, a pygmy hog, a squirrel and pangalon. Jon Favreau usually puts himself in his movies whether he is the lead or just has a small role and in “Jungle Book”, he does the voice of the Pygmy Hog. And before I saw the film I found out that filmmaker, Sam Raimi (The Spider-Man Trilogy & Creator of Evil Dead) does a voice in the film too and he’s the squirrel. All the roles in the original “Jungle Book” were male and Raksha, the female wolf, never spoke, so Jon Favreau took an opportunity with Kaa, the snake, to make it a female and he wanted Scarlett Johansson, who he has worked with before on “Iron Man 2” and “Chef", to do the voice. Scarlett Johansson describe the character in this film more of a story teller, a lot less goofy and more seductive compared to the animated one. I really like the sound of Jon Debney’s score when the baby elephant is saved and “The Bare Necessities” song without the words is in the background and it sounds like something magical and happy. And it helps make me feel the proud feeling Bagheera and Baloo are feeling in that moment and how thankful the elephants are to Mowgli. Jon Favreau and John Debney wanted to use old themes and songs from the original and used some new stuff as well. The film has the same songs from the original film like “The Bare Necessities” and “I Wan’na Be Like You”, but had a few changes in the lyrics of “I Wan’na Be Like You” and it sounds like something more with that jazz kind of sound. Scarlett Johansson even got to sing a song called “Trust in Me”, but that song is only heard during the end credits after “I Wan’na Be Like You”. My friend, James, said this version is better than the 1967 animated feature. I disagree with that, but the ending I like more than the animated feature’s. Instead of going to the human village where he belongs, he stays in the jungle with his animal friends and family. Jon Favrau said he never like that he went with the girl in the end and I can agree to that. My rating on “The Jungle Book” is five out of five stars. Box office “The Jungle Book” made $965,426,138 at the box office |