We've hit a point of no return in terms of remakes: the recent announcement of yet another Indiana Jones film, Disney's intention to produce a new Star Wars film every year, and a mooted reboot of Peter and Elliot the Dragon (!) go a long way to showing the complete inspirational bankruptcy of blockbuster filmmaking. And in case that picture isn't sharp enough for you, along comes Jungle Book to crystallize the issue.
The original is among Disney's most perfect creations, and simply reissuing it in theaters might have accomplished what the present abomination did financially, without any of the wasted effort. What we have here is a deconstruction of the original, where every spin on an old idea misses the mark and every new "idea" turns out to be pointless and predictable.
In true flop-fashion, the problems can be traced to before a camera was even unleashed: the casting becomes and end unto itself, despite a weird mismatch between voice and animal or performance. That blend manages to be less convincing than Homeward Bound (and they used real critters). Ben Kingsley barely pulls off Baghera, but Murray and especially Christopher Walken are embarrassing, especially during the latter's cringe- worthy rendition of "I Wanna Be Like You". The real disappointment is poor young Neel Sethi as Mowgli, who is hung out to dry, too often betraying the digital fakery around him.
The throwback moments are mostly appalling, and the additions, all padding, are yawn- inducing: King Louie has a huge temple? Of course it will crumble during a by-the- numbers chase scene, with none of the humor of the original. The film also awkwardly acknowledges its own pointlessness: since the only way to "improve" on the original is to make everything faster, louder and bigger, serpent Ka is bigger than even Anaconda's titular joke was, and Louie could take King Kong in a fight, while the climactic jungle fire setting the scene for Mowgli's showdown with Khan could probably, in this incarnation, be visible from space.
So there you have it, a tale full of sound and fury, told by idiots etc, as the poet said. White noise. Meanwhile, it hardly registers as a blemish on a more recent poet, original author Rudyard Kipling, who would simply be appalled.
The original is among Disney's most perfect creations, and simply reissuing it in theaters might have accomplished what the present abomination did financially, without any of the wasted effort. What we have here is a deconstruction of the original, where every spin on an old idea misses the mark and every new "idea" turns out to be pointless and predictable.
In true flop-fashion, the problems can be traced to before a camera was even unleashed: the casting becomes and end unto itself, despite a weird mismatch between voice and animal or performance. That blend manages to be less convincing than Homeward Bound (and they used real critters). Ben Kingsley barely pulls off Baghera, but Murray and especially Christopher Walken are embarrassing, especially during the latter's cringe- worthy rendition of "I Wanna Be Like You". The real disappointment is poor young Neel Sethi as Mowgli, who is hung out to dry, too often betraying the digital fakery around him.
The throwback moments are mostly appalling, and the additions, all padding, are yawn- inducing: King Louie has a huge temple? Of course it will crumble during a by-the- numbers chase scene, with none of the humor of the original. The film also awkwardly acknowledges its own pointlessness: since the only way to "improve" on the original is to make everything faster, louder and bigger, serpent Ka is bigger than even Anaconda's titular joke was, and Louie could take King Kong in a fight, while the climactic jungle fire setting the scene for Mowgli's showdown with Khan could probably, in this incarnation, be visible from space.
So there you have it, a tale full of sound and fury, told by idiots etc, as the poet said. White noise. Meanwhile, it hardly registers as a blemish on a more recent poet, original author Rudyard Kipling, who would simply be appalled.