DIRECTED BY: Andy Serkis

STARRING: Rohan Chand, Christian Bale, Andy Serkis, Benedict Cumberbatch, Cate Blanchett, Naomie Harris, Tom Hollander, Eddie Marsan, Matthew Rhys, Freida Pinto, Peter Mullan and Jack Reynor

SYNOPSIS

A human child raised by wolves must face off against a menacing tiger named Shere Khan, as well as his own origins.

The story follows the upbringing of the human child Mowgli raised by a pack of wolves in the jungles of India. As he learns the often harsh rules of the jungle, under the tutelage of a bear named Baloo and a black panther named Bagheera, Mowgli becomes accepted by the animals of the jungle as one of their own, except for one; the fearsome tiger Shere Khan. But there may be greater dangers lurking in the jungle, as Mowgli comes face to face with his human origins.

Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle is the latest film adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book and it is directed by Andy Serkis. The film starts with a crippled Bengal tiger, Shere Khan, breaking the law of the jungle by hunting down a family of humans, with the sole survivor being a young child, as he’s rescued by a black panther, Bagheera. Taken to a family of wolves raised by Nisha and Vihaan, the wolf council agree that the boy is a member of the pack, much to Shere Khan’s frustration. As time goes by with Mowgli growing up as part of the pack, the threat of Shere Khan looms near as Mowgli comes face to face with his human origins.

The film instantly puts its foot down on letting the audience know that it’s going for a darker tone to the tale we’ve seen numerous times, which makes for some new and interesting scenes that we haven’t seen before. One particular memorable scene is when Mowgli tries to hide underwater whilst Shere Khan is right above him is shot very well, the visuals are great and you can feel the intensity of it all. The film shows us the more harsh jungle environment of which we haven’t seen handling this material, so much so that the detail goes into highlighting different character designs, with Shere Khan having a limp, to his Disney-esque sidekick Tabaqui having flies hovering around him all the time and Baloo just looks like he’s been through hell and back and battle scarred. The darker tone is certified with the number of dead humans, animals, blood, carcasses and mounted heads on show, giving it a different feel to that of the most recent adaptation of The Jungle Book. The cinematography from Michael Seresin is really good, as is Serkis’ direction, particularly in the way the Running scene is choreographed and edited. Considering the material he has to deal with and the majority of the characters he interacted with were CGI, I thought Rohan Chand done a good job as Mowgli, and the voice performances from Christian Bale, Benedict Cumberbatch and Naomie Harris were solid as well. The score from Nitin Sawhney is great throughout the film.

One of the things that surprised me the most about this film is how jarring the visual effects are at times. The opening scene in which you can obviously tell it was done on green screen in a studio and the way the animals are animated in terms of facial expressions etc. to the point that it feels cartoonish at times and unfortunately you can’t help but compare it to how the visuals from Favreau’s The Jungle Book.  The pacing isn’t well balanced either, especially in the second half as we try to balance Mowgli’s story in the man village which has nice ideas but overall it just grinds the film to a halt almost and wastes Freida Pinto and while he has more screentime and dialogue in comparison, Matthew Rhys isn’t really given much to make an impression with either. It’s unfortunate overall in that Mowgli comes out so close after The Jungle Book live-action adaptation, especially with how long this particular adaptation has been in development, that Warner Bros. felt the need to delay and inevitably cut their losses and sell this film to Netflix, because it’s clear to see that there is passion behind this project from Serkis in the way that he wants to tell the story. Whilst there’s some good voice performances here, there’s some that just didn’t work for me, particularly Andy Serkis as cockney Baloo, Cate Blanchett as mundane Kaa and Tom Hollander’s Tabaqui feels like tonally he’s in a different film compared to everyone else.

VERDICT

With the best of intentions of making a darker, more faithful as it were, adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s work, the film finds itself caught between a rock and a hard place of not being fun or light enough for children of all ages to enjoy and also not that captivating for young adults and above to be drawn into the world of the jungle. Rohan Chand, Christian Bale, Benedict Cumberbatch and Naomie Harris are highlights here in terms of performances and the score from Nitin Sawhney is great.  5/10