Le livre de la jungle: L'histoire de Mowgli

The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story (1998) is a kind of sequel to the 1994 remake and it was garbage.

Positives for The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story (1998): The movie is only 77 minutes long, so your pain and suffering will be short lived.

Negatives for The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story (1998): The storytelling is very clunky. I was struggling to figure out what was the point of this movie. The animals talk, but they mouths don't move. I didn't understand anything what the characters were saying. And finally, the movie is really boring.

Overall, The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story (1998) is a garbage ass movie to a great remake and I won't rewatch it anytime soon.

"Now your whole family can relive Disney's 'The Jungle Book', from Mowgli's point of view."

Haw! Now THAT is some serious false advertising.

This takes the concept of The Jungle Book and reduces it down to merely "boy is raised by wild animals and shenanigans happen". This film has no real sense of thrill or danger nor any of the mystic charm that was present in all other depictions of The Jungle Book. It takes all that and replaces it with corny gags and bare bones storytelling.

Kids deserve better than this.

Lastly, on a VERY petty, nitpicky note, there is a LOT more misplaced wildlife in this movie than in all, but one other depiction of The Jungle Book (The Jungle Book 2 in case you're wondering). Macaws, chimpanzees, and American black bears are not in India.

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.

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.

This movie is a complete and utter embarrassment to the Jungle Book. First off, the actor who plays Mowgli is horrible. Every line he says comes out sarcastically. It sounds as if he is trying to make fun of the script (quite pitiful, would you say?)! For example, when Bagheera asks Mowgli if he's alright, he replies by saying, "scared, but alive!" I mean, how corny can you get? I know this is supposed to be a kid's movie, but hey, there's a limit! Towards the middle of the film, it started to seem as if the writers had lost interest in the movie and decided to wrap it up somehow. Also, the set design was really sad. What kind of a jungle merges with hilltops? The lagoon was really fake as well. It looked like an ordinary pond in your average backyard. And also, how are all the animals friendly with each other? Aren't the wolves supposed to eat them all up? To add on, there are several goofs in this movie - one of them being that when Shere Khan is trapped in the circle of fire, there is a giant gap visible where he can get through. And when he is 'forced' to agree with being exiled from the jungle, Mowgli moves aside and Shere Khan jumps right over the flames. Why couldn't he just do that from the opposite side of the circle? Was Mowgli supposed to be big enough to surround the entire circle of flames? This just adds on to my earlier point of the writers wrapping up the script. Also, Mowgli never wears any sort of make-up in the entire movie. Even when he's been running all throughout the forest, he looks as if he just got out of bed. In all, this film was by far the most pathetic kid's movie I have ever seen. I don't know what the makers were thinking.