Disney live-action remake finds resonance, beauty in Kipling tale
Let’s set aside for now the pressing question of just how cute Neel Sethi is as Mowgli, and I’ll put on my film professor hat for a moment.
Many critics sniff at the very idea of film remakes as unimaginative and purely profit-driven. Some stories, however, are sturdy enough and some filmmakers are talented enough to take a familiar story (or a familiar film) and give it vibrant new life. Arguably, remakes of True Grit, Casino Royale, Ocean’s Eleven, War of the Worlds, and The Fly were superior to their forebears. Even the venerated classic, The Maltese Falcon, was a craftier adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s story than the earlier and less memorable Satan Was a Lady. So remakes should not be automatically dismissed, as long as the filmmakers do something new and compelling with the narrative.
Enter Disney’s live-action remake of The Jungle Book, a new look at Rudyard Kipling’s classic story. Best known from the 1967 animated version, it has been told on film numerous times dating back to 1942, when it starred Indian novelty star Sabu as Mowgli. Yet many complained that Disney was trampling on tradition by attempting to re-do The Jungle Book. Though, if truth be told, the 1967 version is not top-tier animated Disney, despite the considerable charm of its two memorable songs, “The Bare Necessities” and “I Wan’na Be Like You.”
Director Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Chef, Elf) has breathed new life into this tale of a man-cub finding his place within a forbidding, albeit lively jungle. Favreau and his production team create a world that is breathtakingly beautiful and vibrant, and the CGI-generated animals are incredibly realistic and magnetic, despite their unreal penchant for speaking and even at times singing. Better yet, these animals are voiced by a stellar array of actors, including Bill Murray (Baloo), Ben Kingsley (Bagheera), King Louie (Christopher Walken) and Raksha (Lupita Nyong’o).
And then there’s Neel Sethi, who plays young Mowgli. Beyond his adorable demeanor, Sethi captures the varied colors of Mowgli’s character: willful, feisty, resourceful, naïve. It is a captivating performance, which is good since he is in virtually every minute of the film.
The Jungle Book shouldn’t work because of its amalgam of hyper-realism and fantasy, drama and comedy, peril and playfulness. But it does, resoundingly.
