Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle
I really love the impulse of Andy Serkis, the master of performance-capture acting, directing an ambitious new adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s stories of Mowgli in the jungle. I loved it when it was first announced alongside Jon Favreau doing a more direct live-action take of Disney’s “The Jungle Book,” and I looked forward to it even after Favreau delivered a wonderful film in that 2016 smash. I was saddened when Serkis’s film suddenly found itself relegated to Netflix, and disappointed in watching it. Serkis really wants to separate his work from the shadow of Disney’s take on the material. Unfortunately, that’s almost impossible, and Serkis, who made his directorial debut with the project (although another film he directed, “Breathe,” beat it into theatres last year), is probably not strong enough a storyteller yet to make it successful.
The screenplay by Callie Kloves follows the familiar structure of Kipling’s tale- in the jungle, a dangerous tiger, Shere Khan (performed here by Benedict Cumberbatch), murders a human mother who gets lost with her child. The young boy is found by a panther, Bagheera (Christian Bale), who takes him to a wolf pack, who adopts him and raises him as their own. Over the years, Mowgli grows up, and is loved, but the leader of the pack is aware of how dangerous he will be when he becomes more aware of his human side, and even comes into contact with the human world at their doorsteps. Other familiar characters- like Baloo the bear (played here by Serkis) and Kaa the snake (played by Cate Blanchett)- show up as we expect them to on Mowgli’s journey.
I’ve seen some chatter online since “Mowgli” hit Netflix that the visual effects were not that good, but I would disagree with that. I really like the visual designs of the characters, and how they are rendered as performance-captured, “realistic” CG animals. Serkis has a really good eye of visual details that gives the film a look that was made to be watched on the biggest screen possible, making it’s relegation to the small one (purely for financial reasons) disappointing. The problem, sadly, is two-fold- while I like the idea of a serious film made from this story, I’m not sure one can co-exist after Disney showed they could bring new life to their version of the story two years ago. A film of talking animals is hard to do as serious drama without having some entertainment built in, and while this has its light moments, it’s ultimately a dour affair that doesn’t really connect the way we hope the story would. There are a lot of disappointing things surrounding Andy Serkis’s obvious labor of love, and that may be the most disappointing thing of all- that he wasn’t able to stick the landing.
