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Title: The Jungle Book
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Walt Disney was a pioneer and entertainer in every sense of the word. When speaking of a man who gave us so many classic films, one thing you’d want is for that man to end his career on the top of his form. Sadly, the final film Disney put his own personal touch on was “The Jungle Book,” a movie that is fun to be sure, but better in the sum of it’s parts then on a whole. The story is basic knowledge to everyone by now: The movie revolves around a boy named Mowgli who grew up in the jungle but now has to return to the Man Village before the man hating tiger, Shere Kahn, gets a hold of him. That’s the story, and as you can see it’s a typical Disney story. The conflict comes in the fact that Mowgli doesn’t want to leave the jungle. He grew up there, so his objection is understandable. What’s strange is that when I was younger I felt Mowgli was right to not want to return to the Man Village.
He was basically being uprooted from the life he knew, and I always felt that he would be having more fun living in the jungle singing songs with his best friend Baloo the Bear. Now that I’m older though Mowgli and Baloo come off as immature and selfish and Bagheera the Panther, the guy who I pegged as a bad guy way back when, actually comes off as the sensible one, who makes some very good points about how dangerous the jungle can be. Essentially while we would LIKE Mowgli to stay in the jungle, the fact of the matter is that he simply can’t take care of himself, and no one can really protect him from a tiger. It’s this newfound wisdom of mine that kind of sours the movie for me, as most of the reasons I fell in love with the movie aren’t really there anymore.
No one wants to spend twenty years of their life rooting for a cause that turns out to be illogical. A more mature mind also lets the sad fact that “The Jungle Book” is not as mature in it’s story is also disappointing. Truthfully, the story for this movie is scattered in various different segments, but these segments are hit-and-miss. Not only that, but few of them give off the feeling that the movie is actually leading somewhere. In terms of animation this movie didn’t produce any new techniques or do anything revolutionary. From a technical standpoint I guess you could say it looked like just another day at the office for the animators. Though many faults this movie has (and there are many), there are many positives to the film as well. While the story may not be developed as well as it could have been, the characters at the very least are not black and white, but shades of grey.
While I may stand on a different opinion of the politics in the story now then I did when I was a kid, it’s kind of nice to know that there are various different ways you can look at the situation at hand. Not to mention the songs from the Sherman brothers are some of the catchiest songs in any Disney film, with “I Wanna Be Like You” being a personal favorite of mine. So in a way, this movie is it’s own best friend as well as it’s own worst enemy. The positives and the negatives balance each other out so effectively it’s hard to know how to grade this movie. I’m ultimately going to recommend it, but with a warning that this is certainly not the classic the Disney Company claims it to be. Had Walt not died during production it might have been a stronger film, but I guess we just have to deal with what we've got sometimes.
- -Review By Kevin T. Rodriguez- -
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