directed by: Jon Favreau
written by: Justin Marks + Rudyard Kipling (book)
starring: Neel Sethi, Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley
seen: 18th October, 2017
The bravest thing they could do to make me respect this rendition of this particular fictional universe would be to make it less fictional by having the animals behave like animals, ergo have them NOT TALKING (and also not spontaneously jazz singing, wtf?!). The overall realism of the visual element practicaly beggs for it. Most impressive are the moments without spoken dialogue (helping the elephants, stealing the fire). Once the animals start talking using human voices, suddenly it feels like so much stupider film than it could have been without it.
As a child I always preferred the "chilling, harsh and real" stuff in films (even in those targeted at kids) and I did not liked being talked down. Children are capable of understanding actions and infering meanings if we let them. It makes me wanna cry that they missed such a great opportunity to make a badass jungle story. Use the explanatory voiceover if you must (if the studio underestimates the intelligence of its audiences that much), but make the communication between heroes in their authentic, real language.
And to conclude my cry I must say that I really appreciate what Jon Favreau said about his approach: "In Kipling's time, nature was something to be overcome. Now nature is something to be protected."
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