The Jungle Book, or Cynicism Defanged

If you’re cynical about the new live-action remake of Disney’s classic animated movie The Jungle Book from 1967, that’s okay. Remakes are largely cynical affairs, cash-grabs, easy money. Disney is good at this. Look no further than their new strategy for the Star Wars universe. Heck, look no further than Walt Disney World.

The Jungle Book is the latest in a recent bid to mine the Disney vault for familiar intellectual property guaranteed to make a buck, following the box-office success of the critically panned Alice in Wonderland (2010), the mixed-bag Maleficent (2014), and last year’s actually-pretty-good Cinderella. The difference between The Jungle Book, directed by Jon Favreau and starring newcomer Neel Sethi as Mowgli, and those other movies is that The Jungle Book might just be a great movie, proving that sometimes financial intentions and artistic intentions can work together.

The bare bones of the new movie’s plot are the same as the original animated classic: Mowgli, raised by wolves, goes on a journey to leave the jungle to stay safe from a murderous tiger, Shere Khan (Idris Elba). Mowgli doesn’t want to leave, but Bagheera the panther (Ben Kingsley), with both Mowgli’s good and the good of the jungle in mind, works hard to convince Mowgli that it’s best for him if he goes to a Man-Village. On their way out of the jungle, they encounter many of the same characters as the animated movie: Baloo the bear (Bill Murray), King Louie the orangutan (Christopher Walken), Kaa the python (Scarlett Johannsson).

Not all of it works, but what does work leaves a big impression. Disney and Favreau have kept in some of the original’s songs. Because this iteration of the story doesn’t really play as a musical, the songs fit in sort of awkwardly. Christopher Walken’s rendition of “I Wan’na Be Like You” feels pretty shoehorned in, though Murray and Sethi singing “The Bare Necessities” is nothing but charming. If they had kept only “The Bare Necessities”, perhaps it wouldn’t feel like such an attempt to call back to the original.

What the movie does get right is pretty much everything else. The voiceover work is spot-on. Murray is a delight as the indolent Baloo, Kingsley is appropriately noble as Bagheera, and Elba is terrifying as Shere Khan. The movie’s jungle is beautiful from start to finish. Ostensibly fashioned entirely out of CGI, I could’ve sworn they were shooting everything on location. And the story, while a known commodity, highlights a value for community that was missing from the original.

This is far darker than the 1967 version. It deals more directly with death and with the inherent ugliness of the world. While kids might find more to be scared of in this movie, it’s just as funny and fun as the original, and it offers more for both kids and adults to chew on. I knew the whole time that what I was watching was essentially a greed-driven, sophisticated cartoon, and yet I was moved. Maybe cynicism isn’t all there is to this movie business thing.

Quick Take: The Boxtrolls (2014)

Animated movies that aren’t released by Disney/Pixar, Dreamworks, or Universal don’t get a lot of attention. Granted, even if The Boxtrolls had been released by one of those companies, it still would have been a tough sell. After all, a story about a boy who was raised by trolls that live in boxes is unusual in a rather creepy way. But creepy stop-motion animation is what Laika Entertainment does; they’re the studio responsible for Coraline, ParaNorman, and Corpse Bride. The Boxtrolls is on par with Coraline in that group: a strange, spellbinding story that speaks to the hopes and fears inherent in every child.

Quicker take: Just because something’s creepy and weird doesn’t mean it can’t also be great.

Iron Man 3

The Avengers is a great movie, but no repeat viewing will ever top the first time I saw it.  That feeling of awe and near elation at the audacity of what Joss Whedon & Co. pulled off seemed near untouchable.  Even the climax of closure at the end of The Dark Knight Rises wasn’t as much of a rush as Whedon’s blockbuster.  The Avengers is the highest grossing movie of all time for a reason; Whedon manufactured the perfect storm of pop-culture ecstasy with one mind-blowing set piece after another.  The plot and dialogue break down after multiple viewings, but the joy does not.  The Avengers remains one of the best comic-book movies ever.

Iron Man 3 can’t really compare to the heights of The Avengers.  But that’s okay- it’s still a thrilling ride that improves upon Iron Man 2 in nearly every way.  Where Iron Man 2 was muddled, boring, and long, Iron Man 3 is focused, rousing, and…well, it’s still long.  But Iron Man 3 is far more creative with its length than the second one was; there are several twists and crowd-pleasing moments that make the spectacle worth the time.

One of the ways Iron Man 3 trumps 2 is in its villains.  Guy Pearce plays Aldrich Killian, a scientist who was snubbed early in his career by Tony Stark (the still inimitable Robert Downey, Jr.) and now has plans for regenerating lost limbs that may or may not be linked to terrorist attacks orchestrated by the intimidating Mandarin (Ben Kingsley).  All of this would be pretty unexciting, but director Shane Black adds a personal touch with domestic turmoil between Tony and Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow).  Tony has been distracted with a personal project that has to do with his Iron Man suit, and it’s putting a strain on their relationship.  This is exacerbated when Tony dares the Mandarin to try to attack him at his home, giving out his home address on the national news, something Pepper isn’t too excited about, especially when helicopters come and drag their home into the ocean, separating the lovers indefinitely.

The rest of the movie involves Tony’s effort to find the Mandarin and rejoin Pepper.  The mystery surrounding the Mandarin isn’t too compelling on the surface, but the chillingly realistic videos they broadcast on TV to all America, which show torture and other scenes of war, echo real terrorism videos, making the threat of the Mandarin feel more imminent.  Kingsley is a formidable villain, and Pearce adds an appropriate amount of sleaze as Tony’s rival in the scientific world and for Pepper’s affections.  The two of them make for far more interesting villains than Mickey Rourke’s dud of a baddie, Whiplash, from Iron Man 2.  Downey, Jr. is as hilariously deadpan as ever, and Don Cheadle is enjoyable as Downey, Jr.’s straight man, Tony’s best friend, Jim Rhodes.  Paltrow has never stood out in the Iron Man movies, but in this one her Pepper finally gets to kick some butt.

I don’t think anyone expected an Avengers-level movie here.  I was sufficiently pleased with what I saw.  It’s clever, action-packed, and a lot of fun, much like the first Iron Man.  That’s a little worrisome, though; maybe it’s too much like the first Iron Man.  A lot has changed since the first movie came out in 2008; several great comic book movies have come out that continued Iron Man’s precedent of comic-book-as-social-commentary, as well as other science-fiction/action movies that went beyond spectacle and action.  But they took what Iron Man helped establish and made it their own, putting unique spins on their genres and saying new things about our world.  Iron Man 3 does neither; if Iron Man 4 doesn’t aim higher, audiences will stop caring.