O Livro da Selva: A História de Mogli

A retelling of the book from the kid's perspective. Which changes little, unsurprisingly. But it is not exactly the same as what we saw in the 1967 one.

This feels distinctly like it was perceived to be an easy way to make some more money off a property Disney already could use, and that had been profitable for them in the past. It isn't even the first live-action adaptation of the book. After all you just got to get animal wranglers to the location and that's it. It doesn't take CG. The human on-screen cast is minimal, though there are some extras. There's only one song, the very catchy and completely meaningless Monkey Time, which I'm sure drove some parents up a wall when this first came out, because their offspring wouldn't stop singing it. I appreciate that it sets up the danger of Shere Khan, as well as the fear of man's fire, almost immediately. We don't see those for a while in the original animated classic. He works with other species, somewhat like Scar. The film focuses on the threat the tiger poses to the man cub, and him learning how to hunt so that he is safer. Through this, they explore the coming of age themes of finding out where you belong, discovering who to trust and not making rash decisions.

This does manage you to get a lot of mileage out of some of the critters being cute and others being intimidating. Honestly, it would be so much better if not for the 90s children's film aspects. There's a near constant chatter - including the largely unnecessary narration, usually literally just spelling out what's plainly obvious from the visuals. I wouldn't rule out that it was a studio note, rather than always the plan. It never really stands still for very long, not trusting children to have a little more patience the way that the animated classic did, at least by today's standards. The puns are too plentiful, and so often they go for the most obvious one. Some of the voice cast is well chosen, and they do the best they can with what they're given. Considering how much of a boys club a bunch of these are, I do appreciate that Eartha Kitt (Catwoman herself!) lends her silky smooth vocals to Bagheera. I'm not sure I would claim that I thought Brandon Baker did that strong of a job, but considering his age and the script, he could be significantly worse. Certainly there's a sincere conviction to his performance. I mean, he spends a lot of this literally directly talking to creatures as if they understand him, and will answer, which of course they didn't on set. 4/10.

Colors = pretty; Animals = beautiful; Story = lame with insultingly-stupid-and unrealistic dialog; Acting = bad; Special-effects = the worst, just horrible.

In fact, about the latter: if you've seen the sci-fi movies of the 1950s, particularly Ed Wood's movies, you get an idea how bad this film is in that regard.

If you want details of exactly how hokey some of these scenes were, how cheaply-made this film was, then read several of the others viewers' comments here. I agree with them: this film is so poorly constructed, it was embarrassing to watch. I only viewed it because I was impressed with the 1994 version of "The Jungle Book," with Jason Scott Lee, and I remembered the only animated fondly, as well. I was hoping this would be entertaining, too. Well......wrong!!

The jungle book mowgli's story is a direct to video movie and i thought man is this movie trying to be like the three direct to video movies yeah i get that 1998 was a year we had direct to video sequels so speaking of that i'm gonna talk about the jungle book mowgli's story a movie that makes the 1994 adaptation look like a masterpiece mainly because it's based on the Rudyard Kipling book of the same name sure there some disgusting scenes like not even gonna ask at least the movie did have some funny moments like tabaqui face flopping into the river after being launched by shere khan which was funny.

First of all, what I found interesting-the only thing I found interesting-in this film (and my 5 year old fell asleep ten minutes in) was the weird set design in this movie. Basically, the film was shot in the Malibu foothills with a bunch of supermarket plants thrown around an obvious fake lagoon to simulate some kind of jungle environment, which looked more like something you'd see in a dentist's office or indoor mall. The scenes of Mowgli running among the oak trees with animals thrown together from all corners of the world (I kept waiting for a cute penguin to show up)was just so strange I found it entertaining.

I wonder who decided that this was even release-able-and it's obvious to me that everyone associated with the film must have decamped to drug rehab immediately afterwards. A career ender if I've ever seen one.

My kids enjoyed this movie. I thought it was well done, even though I do NOT like Fred Savage's work. Good rental for kids 9 and under.