The Jungle Book

This review may contain spoilers!

The law of the jungles is that Jon Favreau can't make a bad film. I would give The Jungle Book an 8.5/10.

This film has a fairly solid plot that is an incredible tribute to the original story as well as the classic Disney film, it's easy to see the magic at work in this story. The film flows at quite a natural pace and successfully lets the audience interact with the jungle at the exact same time that Mowgli is interacting with it. The score for this film is simply beautiful, everything about it is nostalgic and a great throwback to the music from the original film. The cinematography is really fast and captures action or chase sequences quite well, but Favreau has a great eye for drawing the camera back to capture some visually stunning shots. This film's real strength is the special effects, The Jungle Book is quite possible the greatest use of CGI technology to date as the animals in this film looked incredible.

Neel Sethi, who played Mowgli, was a great protagonist for this film; Sethi is an exceptionally charismatic actor and you really connect to him. Bill Murray, who voiced Baloo, has the perfect good humoured voice for this role; he's a really funny actor and character in this feature. Ben Kingsley, who voiced Bagheera, has the strong serious tone that makes this role; Kingsley did a great job of establishing the proud and protective father figure role in this film. Lupita Nyong'o, who voiced Raksha, was quite a gentle and caring performer in this film; Nyong'o is fantastic at displaying strong and intense emotions. Scarlett Johansson, who voiced Kaa, had such an enchanting voice in this film; she was really unsettling and made for a great minor antagonist. Giancarlo Esposito, who voiced Akela, had a really strong and powerful performance in this film; while Esposito wasn't in this film for long he did make for a great leader. Christopher Walken, who voiced King Louie, was quite a creep and intimidating antagonist; Walken has a really unique voice and was perfect casting for Louie. Garry Shandling, who voiced Ikki, was a great comedic presence in this film; his line delivery was hilarious. Brighton Rose, who voiced Gray, had great chemistry with Sethi; Rose showed incredible talent for such a young actor.

However the best performance came from Idris Elba, who voiced Shere Khan. Shere Khan is one of those classic villains that you immediately recognise as menacing and Elba does a great job at doing this role justice. Over the course of the film Elba displays one of the strongest screen presences and makes a great impact on every scene he is in. Once again Shere Khan will be an antagonist sharp in people's minds.

The only problem this film had in regards to it's plot was that there were some moments were there were off beats; what I mean by that is there a moments of intense action followed by long periods of inaction or things that don't fit with the tone of the film. One of the biggest off beat moments is when King Louie starts singing, it was awkward and came out of nowhere.

Jon Favreau and Sam Raimi, who voiced Pygmy Hog and Giant Squirrel respectively, weren't very funny in this film; these cameos were a further example of the off beats I mentioned.