This is the other CG-filled Jungle Book. It’s directed by Andy Serkis.
Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Naomie Harris provide voices.
Is this a third Jungle Book property in as many years, or is this this second one that everyone was so amused by last time around, finally coming out? I just can’t keep track of all these Jungle Books!
Wasn’t really interested in this before, but it’s pretty hard to ignore that stellar cast. I might have to drum up some interest.
Awesome dadgum cast! And Matthew Rhys! Sign me up!
Looks interesting.
Pretty sure this is just the second, no other Jungle Book films I’m aware of in production.
There was a Favreau directed Jungle Book in 2016, and there is a sequel to that in production.
So technically this (Mowgli) is the third Jungle Book film I am aware of, at the least, if you count the original animated film.
I knew about this one and the first Favreau film, didn’t pay attention to the fact that Favreau’s was getting a sequel.
Story on Deadline reports Netflix opened their war chest to buy the rights to the movie from Warner Bros. Will stream sometime in 2019.
Oh wow. Has that happened before? A movie advertised and with set theater launch shifts to Netflix?
Here it is:
I’ve got to admit, that’s a pretty good trailer.
So this isn’t terrible. I am sure a number of people will enjoy it even if I found it middling. The animals are not great in terms of their animation. They look worse the longer you look at them and I kept thinking they spent so much time on the expressions and faces they kind of forgot to make the bodies seem natural… like at all. It is a darker take. There is one scene, I won’t spoil it, that just made me says Jesus outloud because it seemed unnecessary and just placed there for shock value more than story. There are some moments where i really wondered what would happen, good suspense at times and in terms of visual it’s only the animals that really seem off compared to everything else. The kid is fine, voice acting is goodish, but man those expression just sort of remind how not an animal they are. Naturally the tiger is pretty scary and the one outloud Jesus scene might be a bit hard for kids. Their story take might be a little hard to follow to as its “off script” a bit compared to how the story is usually told.
And I don’t know what they were doing with Ka. I was kind of expecting more and a different stance with the snake.
So as far as Netflix films go, kind of towards the toppish keeping in mind I generally don’t like them anyway.
It wasn’t originally a Netflix film, it was purchased off WB after delays. Some animators working on this literally came from animating on the Disney one up the street, so the difference of animation perceived is largely the style chosen by the director, ie, using video reference of actor performance to drive the stylized (read:uncanny) animal faces and head actions, and to marry it with traditional keyframe for locomotion, though they toyed with West-End musical puppet mocap ideas. In many ways the animation and character designs are more complex and nuanced than the Disney one, but the Disney one referenced more animal behaviour and design, and so isn’t as attention pulling.
Anyway, it is what it is. Too dark for kids, not psychologically challenging enough for adults, not sure why they thought it would be good for the large screen (unless they had beat Disney to it, but that race was lost a month into production.) But as a TV offering, it’s found the best home it could have wanted.
Interesting story about the animation behind it. The result though is I spent the bulk of the movie just thinking how not real the animals looked. The wolves are especially weird looking. They don’t look right at all. Baloo just looks like a weird half human half bear mask on a fat bear that doesn’t do much. Style choice or otherwise, I didn’t spend my time looking at other movies, not just Jungle Book, thinking about why they look so weird like I did this movie.
Yeah, most young kids shouldn’t watch this and older kids not sure they would enjoy it. It’s dark in areas for no good reason… as in it didn’t make it a better story when they made those choices either.
The Mogli animal faces are actually a human / animal hybrid. Eye spacing, noses, etc are a mix of the animal and the actor, otherwise the facial expressions wouldn’t transfer or have the same meaning. The Disney one did what all talking animal movies have done, wag the eyebrows and widen the eyes at the right moments but keep to animal proportions, which is why it seems more natural, even if they’re talking. Also, in Mogli for some reason the wolves are twice as big as wolves should be IRL. Not sure why.
Their bodies are weird too, more like… not a coyote or wolf but maybe a dingo. It could be that that is more correct for the area of the world they’re doing but combined with the facial thing you’re talking about… it just all looks weird, like this doglike alien in a jungle. They were the worst which is bad because, well, they get the most screen time too, especially the… one.
The wolves didn’t look much like what we would think. Dunno if there’s some sort of jungle, Southeast Asian type they were based on. The other animals were pretty good I thought with the Tiger being the best looking.
Yeah but even his face was weirdly boxy. If it was a stylistic choice, fine. If it was to make their faces do more, okay… but regardless of the reasoning many of them came out looking like not quite animals except the elephants which I guess they didn’t try to humanize to talk or anything. Maybe a little with the eyes. Regardless, if it were just the animals the movies would be fine but like Spiffy kind of said, I am not sure who this movie was supposed to be for.
We watched this last night and liked it. Not as much as the recent live action take on the Disney classic, but we still enjoyed it just the same. Not having read Rudyard Kipling’s book that the story was based on, my guess is this movie would be closer, though I really have no idea. I agree with the one WTF scene that comes up late in the movie. Hell, things took a major turn once the village scenes came up anyway.
As for the animations, they weren’t horrible. Certainly not out of this world stellar, but you quickly get through the brief period where you have to place yourself and believing they are real characters so you can get on with the movie. I agree with you both on the wolves though. They just didn’t look like what I expect wolves to be. Like skinny akito dogs, not wolves.
For what it’s worth, as a free movie, this made for a great Friday night. :)