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Dazzling live-action ‘Jungle Book’ update is a fun run

Published 7:14 pm Wednesday, April 13, 2016

By Robert Horton Herald movie critic

Mowgli, portrayed by Neel Sethi, and Gray, voiced by Brighton Rose, appear in a scene from “The Jungle Book.”
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Mowgli, portrayed by Neel Sethi, and Gray, voiced by Brighton Rose, appear in a scene from “The Jungle Book.”

Mowgli, portrayed by Neel Sethi, and Gray, voiced by Brighton Rose, appear in a scene from “The Jungle Book.”
Mowgli is played by Neel Sethi, an energetic young actor. Raksha the wolf is voiced by Lupita Nyong’o.
Baloo the bear is voiced by Bill Murray, who provides some of the best parts of the movie.
Shere Khan the tiger is the villain in “The Jungle Book.”
Mowgli, the man-cub, makes friends with Baloo the bear in “The Jungle Book.”
The tiger Shere Khan is the villain in “The Jungle Book.”

Bigger tiger. Bigger bear. And wait ‘til you see King Louie of the apes.

Everything is bigger in Disney’s update of its beloved 1967 animated classic, “The Jungle Book.” Thankfully, the bulking-up doesn’t completely capsize this enterprise. It’s a well-made picture, if downright terrifying at times.

The approach is “live action,” but only in a loose sense. Rudyard Kipling’s little orphan boy Mowgli is played by a real kid — the energetic Neel Sethi — but almost everything else in this universe is digitally created to resemble a real jungle.

The animals are realistic, too. And they talk, proving that Disney learned a lesson from its 1994 version of the story, in which the beasts remained nonverbal.

In this telling, Mowgli’s mentor, the panther Bagheera (voiced by Ben Kingsley), urges Mowgli to leave the jungle for human society. Mowgli doesn’t want to go, but the feared tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba) has decreed that the “man-cub” will soon be dinner.

Naturally, there’s an interlude with a lazy bear, Baloo. The fact that Baloo is voiced by Bill Murray is just one of the reasons this section of the movie is the most fun — the rest of the time the jungle seems so dangerous you’re amazed Mowgli would want to stay.

Baloo also sings “The Bare Necessities.” You can’t do the movie without that.

There are elephants, wolves, and a porcupine given funny voice by the late Garry Shandling. And apes: King Louie is no longer an orangutan, but somehow a gigantopithecus, a huge extinct primate. So he’s King Kong-scaled.

Louie is voiced by Christopher Walken in loosey-goosey form. He sings another tune from the 1967 film, “I Wanna Be Like You,” which has new lyrics by original co-composer Richard M. Sherman. (If you want to hear Scarlett Johansson, as the snake Kaa, sing “Trust in Me,” stay for the end credits.)

Director Jon Favreau (“Iron Man”) doesn’t entirely solve the disconnect between these wacky musical interludes and the boy-in-peril storyline. The scary sequence of Shere Khan chasing Mowgli through a burning forest is going to sear itself into the brains of young children — especially in 3D, which is how I saw the movie. The camera whips around so much during the action sequences that the 3D becomes a challenge to the eyeballs.

Whether this steroidal approach to children’s movies will prove popular remains to be seen. But “The Jungle Book” certainly provides a breathless adventure, even if it goes way beyond the bare necessities.

“The Jungle Book” 3 stars

Everything is bigger in this update of the 1967 Disney cartoon, rendered here in a digitally-created live-action universe. The steroidal approach is pretty scary at times, but the movie is well-made and some of the voices (especially Bill Murray as Baloo) are fun.

Rating: PG, for violence

Showing: Alderwood, Cinebarre, Everett, Monroe, Marysville, Stanwood, Pacific Place, Sundance Cinemas, Thornton Place, Woodinville, Cascade Mall, Oak Harbor

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