Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle

"Oh, so when YOU guys do it it's a 'faithful retelling' and a 'passion project', but when WE do it it's a 'cynical cashgrab' and 'taking advantage of public domain stories' and we wind up on MST3K. I see." /The Asylum

Certainly a more faithful adaptation of the original book, though by no means better. More time could have been spent establishing individuals in the man village besides just the British hunter, more consistency with Baloo and more emotion out of Bagheera would have helped, and while I get the idea behind making their faces more expressive, they do not look good. Chand's performance alone is fantastic and worth watching, and thematically I admire how dark it goes. It gets a pass by me.

Admirable adaptation of the Kipling tale largely suffers by comparison to Favreau's more tonally certain (and entertaining) version, but Serkis' straight-up dramatic rendering is surprisingly gripping; goes into some dark and unsettling areas but it still feels as if an awkward compromise was made to make it somewhat (older) kiddie friendly. An excellent cast make the most of their roles, with Cumberbatch a wonderful villain (almost comparable to Scar) and Marsan a stoic father figure.

Even with the long production time it still seems a bit rushed. Also as its PG-13 it's darker than the Disney remake but hardly the gritty version it so wants to me. Pretty much dipped it's toes into darkness then quickly pulled out. Alright all the same.

I mean... it's alright, but just how many times do we need to tell this story?

Straight off the bat, tries for an epic ‘Lord of the Rings’ feel by having Blanchett breathily narrate the prologue. I mean, what other reason could a ‘Jungle Book’ adaptation have for having Kaa, of all creatures, as narrator? The first half is a pretty faithful rendering of the book and what worked so magically on the page falls flat onscreen, not helped by some variable effects and ineffective voice work. It does pick up a little towards the end, and has the bonus of a charismatic, e

The story is good but the CGI was almost offensive. I get they could have wanted to stylise and humanise the animals to make them more expressive, but they were all out of uncanny valley, and no wolf seemed to be from the same species as the other, or even be wolves at all and it's too distracting.

Bad

Don't watch it with you kids, wtf, too scary unnecessarily dark, violent and sad. One scene in particular was a total dick move towards young audiences. Bad

Comfortably better than Favreau's version a couple of years earlier.

The first true to source Jungle Book story. Why do you need another one, because it is a great story.

Visually beautiful but emotionally unengaging. A darker take on the story may be superficially interesting, but this fails to actual deliver on that promise.

Never have I seen animal characters animated so well. Unfortunately that's the best part of the movie, but I dare say that it's worth to watch it even for that, just really don't expect much else. The story has its good points, it kind of works, but it gets very weak by the end. Mowgli goes through a lot during the plot, but he doesn't learn anything, he merely takes revenge in a very long fight scene and then goes back to live the same way he used to. No character development at all.

It's a terrible uncanny valley experience with distressingly human faces pasted onto animal bodies. However, this didn't bother me a lot. The other "issue" with this adaptation is that it's a much more faithful adaptation of Kipling than the Disney one, offering a pretty dark and cruel version of familiar material. I really liked this aspect, and ... for me ... it made up for the bad animation.

Not sure why they made this so shortly after the Jungle Book (2016)...? Found the storytelling boring. The kid made it watchable - pretty descent performance! *Okay

Non è brutto come film, ma il fatto che non sia mai riuscita a trovare la voglia di finirne la visione qualcosa dovrà pur dire. Non è il mio genere probabilmente (anzi di sicuro, non amo i film sugli animali), in ogni caso qualunque sia la motivazione non mi ha mai preso fino in fondo e alla fine l'ho abbandonato all'oblio.

It's difficult not to compare Mowgli to The Jungle Book, though this version does provide a darker tone with more mature themes and a plot that doesn’t rely on nostalgic reprises. I enjoyed the voice acting and the mocap didn’t bother me, but some of the CGI was less than seamless. Chand's physicality is impressive though his dialogue does let the character down a bit. Blanchett's Kaa was the most interesting version I’ve seen. It’s a better effort than the remake yet still quite flawed.

This was really pretty - so long as there wasn't any humans or animals. The acting is uniformly atrocious (with the village scenes seemingly cut from an Incredible India promotion clip), and the animals look like puppets created by a blind man who hates nature.

Ugh. For all the talent involved, I expected a lot more from this. We never needed another Jungle Book film and this didn't do anything to change my mind. I'm not sure how faithful it is to the original source but it just doesn't bode well for me. The CGI is at the same time incredible and jarring, especially when it needs to interact with live actors. A bright spot for the film was the kid who played Mowgli. He does an incredible job with the role.

Here comes another Jungle Book movie. As if we needed one so soon after the Disney film. Oh well, at least it felt different enough to enjoy the adventure all over again. Certainly worked as a family time bonding for all ages here, and I can't ask for much more than that.

He seemed more like a spoiled child who woke up in the jungle one day instead of one who was raised by wolves and therefore didn't move like spaz. Pretty much every supposedly dramatic or emotional one can be summarized by "And then they took out their anger issues on each other.". Or "So Mowgli decided to blame everyone else for things not going his way in an utmost cunty fashion." mostly due to most characters being wildly overacted. Serkis might be a good visual director, but that's it.

Poor CGI and a story that has been told countless times before, and better.

Dark, time after time scary mood was nice. Lots of brilliant eye candy. Shame it did not work that well as a whole. Did he try to make a silly kid story for adults?

I definitely liked some of the choices with this, but at the same time loathed others. Serkis does not manage to take control of this. The opening just screams LOTR (deep sigh). The gritty and dark take is welcome, but the whole thing seems rushed. *Okay

Not as dark as the reviews led me to believe. The moment they are referring to is a powerful one though.

More dumb Netflix spam. Sick of it.