Disney’s The Jungle Book: Wild, Wondrous, & a Little Scary

Some of my favorite childhood memories are based around The Jungle Book.  From watching the original animated movie, to reading the Disney Little Golden Book at bedtime every night, to reading the Kipling stories as I got older, The Jungle Book plays prominently in my mind.

You can imagine my excitement when I heard that Disney was releasing a brand new version of The Jungle Book in theaters this month!  I couldn’t wait to relive a bit of my childhood while sharing it with my own children.  My family and I were able to catch an early screening of The Jungle Book on Tuesday, and I’m excited to tell you all about it.  No spoilers of course, in case you haven’t seen the original.

I bet you’ve already heard about this movie, but just in case, let me give you a little background information.  First, take a look at the trailer:

The new movie version of The Jungle Book is a live-action adventure about Mowgli (newcomer Neel Sethi), a “man-cub” who has been raised by a family of wolves. When a fearsome tiger named Shere Khan (voiced by Idris Elba) decides he doesn’t want Mowgli around anymore, Mowgli is forced to leave his home and embark on a journey guided by mentor Bagheera (voiced by Ben Kingsley) and free-spirited Baloo (voiced by Bill Murray).  He encounters plenty of jungle creatures who don’t necessarily want to look out for him, including the python Kaa (voiced by Scarlet Johansson) who hypnotizes Mowgli, and King Louie (voiced by Christopher Walken), who tries to get Mowgli to spill his secrets.  The movie also features Lupita Nyong’o as mother wolf Raksha and Giancarlo Espositio as alpha wolf Akela.

This movie was incredibly well done and was absolutely action-packed.  It kept the attention of my entire family throughout the film.  The graphics were amazing, and I love the integration of live-action in a CG environment.  The movie is visually beautiful, and following Mowgli’s adventure was just as interesting to me as an adult as it was to me as a child.  And if you were worried that the change in style would mean the elimination of the songs you love, you can relax.  They’ve managed to incorporate the two most important without upsetting the tone of this version of the movie.

That said, I was pretty disappointed at how dark they’ve made The Jungle Book.  Yes, I know that, at its heart, it’s not exactly a bright, happy story, but what I love about the 1967 film is that it’s able to take what could be a dark story and turn it into something that moves children without scaring them.  I can’t say the same for this movie:  it scared my 6 year old son, and my 7 year old daughter found parts of it creepy; she was actually concerned about kids younger than her watching the movie.  And I quote, “There were kids there who were younger than me! That’s cray cray.”  I promise I didn’t teach her the phrase “cray cray”, but she has a point.  The film contains a level of darkness and violence that I don’t think is necessary and that I don’t need to expose my kids to.  They need more light and fun in their lives, not more darkness.  I was looking forward to this being a film I could watch with the family over and over again, but that’s just not what it is.

Ultimately, I didn’t dislike this new iteration of The Jungle Book:  it’s well done, and I enjoyed watching it.  My husband, who’s neither seen the other version of the movie nor read the stories, absolutely loved it.  For me, though, it’s just too dark and violent for young kids, whom some might expect to be the primary audience.  Bottom line:  I’m sad they’ve taken the spirit of the original animated film and made it too dark for kids to have the same Jungle Book experience I had as a child.  As with any film, your mileage may vary, but I do want to make sure my readers know this isn’t the animated movie we grew up with, and you may want to screen it yourself before taking your younger kids to see it.