Concept: Boy grows up in the jungle, cared for by talking animals. Based on the book by Rudyard Kipling.
 

• A highly entertaining romp through the animal-talking jungle—drama, thrills, wittiness, laughs along the way.
• This is the kind of “live-action” drama that Walt Disney was trying throughout his lifetime to produce, something that is as enthralling for the grown-ups as it is for the kids. He mostly achieved that universality with his animated features, but his final animated features couldn’t hold a candle to his earlier works, like “Pinocchio” (1940) or “Dumbo” (1941). And one of those final works was the animated version of “The Jungle Book” (1967), the last film Disney worked on personally and one that was noteworthy only for the catchy tunes that it had (two of which are replicated in the new version).
• Nearly 50 years later, Disney produces a completely revamped, “live-action” version that takes the tale a lot more seriously than its older counterpart. “Live action” is in quotes because the movie is nearly all CGI, but it effectively gives the illusion of a real forest with real animals that talk. The boy is real (most of the time), and during the moments when he isn’t (like in some of the more dangerous stunts), the CGI is so well done that you can’t tell the difference.
• Is the movie good? Yes, it’s extremely good, pulling out all the stops to tell the story about a jungle boy who is being hunted down by the tiger that killed his father. The cinematography is gorgeous, the animals extremely convincing, the boy compelling, the drama well portrayed, the action finely choreographed. Everything just works great.
• The moviemakers also do a fantastic job combining voice talent and CGI animation, especially with the bear Baloo (Bill Murray), the panther Bagherra (Ben Kingsley), and the giant orangutan King Louie (Chrisopher Walken doing his weird Mafioso shtick). And we can’t forget those cute wolf cubs.
• But the movie is a couple of steps away from greatness. The film doesn’t reach the emotional depth of the best Disney films. There are the great Disney/Pixar flicks, such as “The Lion King,” “Up,” “Toy Story,” and “Pinocchio,” and then there are the very, very good flicks, such as “Zootopia” (2016) and the 2016 “Jungle Book.”
• I’m starting to see Disney movies less as films and more as expensive properties, like a Disney resort or theme park. They invest a lot of love, care, research, marketing, money and time into all these properties, including the Marvel and Star Wars movies. And as a result, most of them are experiences that nearly all of us enjoy quite a bit and we feel it’s money well spent. But I can’t help but miss the quirkiness and individuality of the best Pixar movies—the disenchanted superhero of “The Incredibles” (2004), the loneliness of an old widower and an overweight child in “Up,” the disillusion of a middle-school teen in “Inside Out” (2015). Great movies like those make us face the pain of our lives, very good ones like “The Jungle Book” help us to forget that pain for a little while.