Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle Review

There have been many adaptations of The Jungle Book over the years with perhaps the most well known being the films by Disney. Usually adaptations of this beloved book have been spread out over years sometimes even decades so imagine everyone's shock when Disney announced there plans to remake there classic animated film into live and action and around the exact same time Warner bros. announced that they were making a darker live action version of the story. Well now the film is here with us and here is my review of Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle.

The plot of the film is a human child raised by wolves must face off against a menacing tiger named Shere Khan as well as his own origins. Despite what it says in my summery this film isn't an origin story but rather an adaptation of All the Mowgli Stories which was the third Jungle Book novel. I have to say tho that for me the story is perhaps one of the films weakest elements it's not a bad story by any means it's just nt as good as it could have been.

This film features a mixture of live action and CGI so starring in live action we have Rohan Chand as Mowgli , Matthew Rhys as John Lockwood and Freida Pinto as Messua. In terms of the live action I can say that the only actor I really liked and how I thought gave a truly great performance was Rohan. I honestly believe that this kid has a great future ahead of him and he can become a big star if he chooses his roles carefully.

In terms of the voice cast we have Christian Bale as Bagheera , Benedict Cumberbatch as Shere Khan , Cate Blanchett as Kaa , Tom Hollander as Tabaqui , the film's director Andy Serkis as Baloo , Peter Mullan as Akela , Naomie Harris as Nisha , Eddie Marsan as Vihaan , Jack Reynor as Brother Wolf and Louis Ashbourne Serkis as Bhoot. In terms of the voice cast I thought that everyone was truly freaking fantastic in this film and given who's in the cast that's not really a surprise since alot of these actors have won OSCARS. 

I'm honestly struggling to say who I liked the most out of the voice cast because I loved both Benedict Cumberbatch and Andy Serkis in this movie altho for some reason Andy gives Baloo an east London accent which I thought was really freaking weird and kind of distracting and Benedict is just so freaking awesome in this I feel like he had a freaking blast playing Shere Khan.

One of the things that the film got praise for was the CGI and I agree with all that praise because the CGI in this film is truly freaking amazing. I have no idea what studio or company did the animation for this film but I hope to god that they get more work just based of this film alone and this is where having a guy used to doing motion capture be your director works because he'll no all the in's and out's of that process and can thus but that technology to work in the best way possible.

I know you might be wondering "wait wasn't this film due to be released by Warner Bros." and the answer is yes yes it was. For some reason they sold the rights to the film to Netflix just a few days after releasing the trailer and the poster for the film. There are rumors tho that they did it avoid having a failure the size of that Pan movie that came out a few years ago but that wouldn't have happened because this movie is actually quite enjoyable and it has an all star cast. So I have to wonder if there was another reason for them selling of the rights to the film.

Andy Serkis described this film as dark and scary and I can tell you straight up that it's neither dark nor is it scary. If anything it's like a kid who's trying to be adult but failing to do so because they don't understand what being adult means yet.That to me is the perfect way to describe this film because it's not dark or scary if anything it's a little bit darker then Disney's live action reboot of The Jungle Book but that's really it.

Now usually when I see a bad film I would normally blame the writer or the director but since the writer is a first time writer and the director is a first time director I can't really do that because nobody makes a perfect film there first time around. For those of you who don't know the writer of this film is Callie Kloves who is the daughter of Steve Kloves who wrote a bunch of the Harry Potter films and while she does have some talent as a writer it's going to take the perfect film for that to shine through.

As for director Andy Serkis he has a lot of passion for The Jungle Book and while that passion does indeed show through I think that this was the wrong film for him to make his directorial debut. I say that because while he's not bad at directing this film would have required someone with alot more experience and having alot of passion will only get you so far but over time he will get that experience if he chooses to continue on as a director.

Overall this wasn't a bad film but everything that has been said about it from the cast and crew is pretty much a lie like I said before it's not dark or scary it's only a little bit darker then the recent Disney version and that's not something to be proud of so this film gets a 5 out of 10 from me and that was me being very kind.