'The Jungle book' opens again

The whole point in remaking Walt Disney’s greatest masterpiece the great animated musical from 1967 which was based on Kipling’s tales, was to create an enjoyable piece of beautiful-looking movie with an element of old-fashioned story telling; fun, exciting, funny and spectacular. The storyline revolves around the man club 'Mowgli' who was brought up by wolves in an Indian jungle. This was a departure from the live-action mysterious valley of the exaggerated CGI.

The film which is directed by Jon Favreau has an all-star cast which includes Lupita Nyong’o who depicts the voice of the protective mother wolf Raksha. Giancarlo Esposito, another great actor in this cast represents the voice of wolf pack’s male Akela. The Jungle book is a blend of photorealistic CGI animals and live-action. It employs the use of up-to-the minute technology and subtle storytelling techniques to capture audiences into a lush and enchanting world. The movie revives Disney’s spirit of original film while also bringing back the element of movies such as Incredible Journey (1963) which are based on animals. It almost feels like a movie which could be watched by kids on TV. It has a weird touch of Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto (2006), a jungle nightmare.

The characters of 'The Jungle book'

The most striking feature in this film is the fact that it reimports story elements of the classic, The Lion King (1994). The cast includes newcomer Neel Sethi who plays Mowgli himself; Idris Elba depicts an evil tiger Shere Khan; Ben Kingsley as Baghera the panther; Scarlett Johansson represents a hissing snake mesmerist Kaa; Bill Murray as Baloo depicts a bear which teaches Mowgli about the importance of enjoying life’s bare necessities.

Neel Sethi as Mowgli

The digital rendering of talking animals in this film is so persuasive which creates ingenious and witty twists on the story. A new plot concerning wolf-leader Akela and Shere Khan develops which consequently creates a backstory for Mwogli explaining how he acquired that modest loincloth of his.

The use of two famous songs I Wanna Be like You and Bare Necessity give it a natural and easy feeling even though it is not a musical. It also revives Kipling’s law of the jungle with its theme “The Strength of the wolf is the pack/ and the strength of the pack is the wolf”. Baloo has a passion for poems and calls them one “propaganda”. This movie posits the idea of human beings and animals coexisting together and hence sacrificing the idea of Mowgli ever looking for romance after growing up. The movie is a tremendous success and has a chance at making it big by beating the estimated consensus and fetching worldwide revenue of $ 1 billion according to Forbes. This is a huge statement for any movie which lacks a roman numeric after its name. Most of the projections for this movie were estimated at around $200 million of domestic gross profit. So far, The Jungle book has proved to be a success in the 15 territories where it was released. Its weekend cume was $ 31 million which was double what Disney’s live-action earned during its debut in the same territories last year. However, whether The Jungle Book exceeds the $ 1billion mark in China depends hugely on its reception

'The Jungle book'  comes in theaters in April