Mowgli's issues are already unfortunate enough, finally releasing after over two years sitting on the shelf, and losing its theatrical slot. This is all obviously owed to coming off the heels of Jon Favreau's live-action remake of Disney's animated Jungle Book, a great film that while owing a lot of inspiration to its hand-drawn predecessor, did so while incorporating some of the darker undertones and sense of violence from Kipling's stories. It also helped that the film looked amazing, boasting photo-realistic CGI that still astounds me. So already, Mowgli faced the unfortunate task of trying to set itself apart from that earlier film. And to be fair, the film does have its own merits to set itself apart, even if it tends to remind you of that other film.
I don't want comparing the two to be a factor in my judgment, especially since the tones they strive for are distinctly different, but on a visual level, it was hard for me not to do that. To be honest, so many of the visuals and the animal models did wind up distracting me, given how similar the film could look to Disney's take. While it may be less prevalent in models, in scenery the two really clash with the other, especially when it features distractingly similar lighting effects and compositions. There's a scene where monkeys kidnap Mowgli, dragging him up a waterfall and taking him to this ruined temple, and I chuckled because it looked EXACTLY like the scene where the monkeys bring Mowgli to King Louie in Disney's film.
But looking beyond those superficial similarities, Serkis does manage to achieve his own distinct style, and yet even for someone who's worked with truly breathtaking and game-changing effects work, I don't think his visual eye here is always so polished. When it came to the animal models, I actually really loved the redesigns that many of them had been given. They now have a hyper-realistic touch to them, with disgusting scarring, mange, and other deformities that give them each a unique personality. And those models look great, but their integration, and their interactions with the live-action Mowgli, was very inconsistent to my eyes. At times they look absolutely amazing, but at other points (including and especially every single time that Kaa appeared) they look disenchanting, and that really took me out of the movie. But let it not be said that the CGI work wasn't very good, although I'd have liked to see it play out on a larger screen.
What'll really help sell the creatures are the voice-over cast selected to play them, and like the models, those players aren't always consistent. For one, I actually much prefer Cate Blanchett's take on Kaa to Scarlett Johansson's, acting as an all-knowing, feared historian and seer of the jungle, given great gravitas by Blanchett (although, now that I think about it, it did seem derivative of Galadriel). Elsewhere we have Christian Bale as a world-weary Bagheera and emotional partner for Mowgli, although Bale does sound a little too young for the role. Andy Serkis also performs as Baloo, playing a tough-edged but very lighthearted take on the character, with Naomie Harris as a lovely mother figure to Mowgli as Nisha. We also have Benedict Cumberbatch as the tiger Shere Khan, giving it his all in another solid villain role, although it did strike me as distracting how it sounds like a regurgitation of his Smaug voice.
And in the title role, Rohan Chand felt so natural and seamless through all of it, really placing a lot of emphasis on Mowgli's animalistic nature in a very physically demanding role, managing to lend genuine and terrific chemistry between the animals of the jungle. And aside from some very noticeable moments where he lets his isolation slip through, like looking in locations where animals aren't and underplaying their presence, he manages to make those creatures feel all the more real.
Honestly, up until the midway point, I was digging the movie despite my preconceptions and the novelty of the last Book film. But once this movie gets into its real differentiation point, it immediately took a nosedive. At a crucial point, Mowgli finally makes his way to the man-village, in an extended section where he adjusts to village life, and the people in it. In concept, this isn't a bad idea, and potentially opens itself up to some great thematic meat. The problem is, being that this is a 104 minute movie, it takes a full hour for Mowgli to end up here, so it's not only jarring and too late to get into this material, but we have very little time to actually give it the attention it would deserve. As a result, it just brings the film to a screeching halt, especially when the most prominent human figures take center stage.
We now have a secondary villain in this hunter played by Matthew Rhys, who tries to form this compassionate relationship with Mowgli, before revealing something much more sinister underneath. Not only does this revelation come so hastily and sloppily (despite one brilliant and heartbreaking reveal), but Rhys plays the character in such a half-formed fashion, where he spontaneously jumps into the crazy rather than easing. You also have Frieda Pinto as a new maternal figure to him, but she's undercut by not even getting full, proper scenes with Mowgli, existing only as a montage mom, and ultimately leaves no impression on the movie at all.
And this camp section of the film is over so quickly, getting right back into the jungle for a rushed and quite frankly sloppy climax, and a resolution that feels incomplete. This section of Mowgli discovering his heritage becomes a footnote rather than a major development, leaving that entire subplot blowing in the wind as if we're missing chunks of the film. But even with the focus back on the animals, they get undercut by the film sidelining them for the most part. In fact, from the point that Mowgli finally returns to the jungle, most of them don't even get anymore speaking lines. And while attempting to end on a triumphant and meditative note, it actually just ends on a whimper cut from something more fulfilling.
It honestly frustrates me how the film crashed and burned this way. I wanted this movie to succeed, and for the most part I was absolutely willing to push aside any and all comparison to Favreau, but this potentially interesting idea turned out for the worst, and I'm sorry to say that Disney's version still looms over Mowgli as the superior take.
**1/2 / *****
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