It's dismaying how many here regard Disney as the benchmark for The Jungle Book and its central character Mowgli. The benchmark is Kipling's book!
For over a century the fantasy life of young boys and girls was informed by the self-contained story-chapters in the Jungle Book, not all about Mowgli. Kipling was a story teller, who could fire the imagination of kids, which Nobel recognized in one of their wiser prizes. Unfortunately, Disney ruined it for kids by cartoonizing the Jungle Book and turning into a silly musical.
There's a beautiful Korda version of the Jungle Book, from 1942, starring Sabu as Mowgli. Due to the constraints of having animals speak, most of that movie focuses on the humans and in a way closer to the Kipling version. The ripe technicolor of the restored print and the soundtrack of Miklós Rózsa make for an exotic, faraway, almost dreamlike experience. Find this one and compare the Mowglis. I think Sabu and Rohan Chand are wonderful, in their own ways.
The Serkis Mowgli takes advantage of modern CGI to give the animals articulating mouths to speak the lines, so we can be in the jungle more. Though most of the characters are original, Serkis has replaced Shere Khan's sidekick Tabaqui's jackal with a hyena, maybe because hyenas are more grotesque. No biggie. Serkis has departed further from the Kipling plot, but in ways that don't spoil the basic story.
The very end is good enough, but in the Kipling, Mowgli is finally drawn back to the humans by one of them he's oddly curious about--a girl. I thought that was a charming way for Kipling to end it. But the way Serkis chooses to end the film is fine. I'd have given an 8, but add 1, because this movie has done a great service in rescuing Kipling and us from Disney.
For over a century the fantasy life of young boys and girls was informed by the self-contained story-chapters in the Jungle Book, not all about Mowgli. Kipling was a story teller, who could fire the imagination of kids, which Nobel recognized in one of their wiser prizes. Unfortunately, Disney ruined it for kids by cartoonizing the Jungle Book and turning into a silly musical.
There's a beautiful Korda version of the Jungle Book, from 1942, starring Sabu as Mowgli. Due to the constraints of having animals speak, most of that movie focuses on the humans and in a way closer to the Kipling version. The ripe technicolor of the restored print and the soundtrack of Miklós Rózsa make for an exotic, faraway, almost dreamlike experience. Find this one and compare the Mowglis. I think Sabu and Rohan Chand are wonderful, in their own ways.
The Serkis Mowgli takes advantage of modern CGI to give the animals articulating mouths to speak the lines, so we can be in the jungle more. Though most of the characters are original, Serkis has replaced Shere Khan's sidekick Tabaqui's jackal with a hyena, maybe because hyenas are more grotesque. No biggie. Serkis has departed further from the Kipling plot, but in ways that don't spoil the basic story.
The very end is good enough, but in the Kipling, Mowgli is finally drawn back to the humans by one of them he's oddly curious about--a girl. I thought that was a charming way for Kipling to end it. But the way Serkis chooses to end the film is fine. I'd have given an 8, but add 1, because this movie has done a great service in rescuing Kipling and us from Disney.