The best music covers tend to be
songs that improve on a song with great lyrics but mediocre music behind it.
Bob Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower” has amazing lyrics because it’s a Bob
Dylan song, but so-so music behind it, well, because it’s a Bob Dylan song.
Jimi Hendrix was able to take those lyrics and, using his incredible talent
as a guitar player, give Dylan’s lyrics the appropriate music they deserved.
The Byrds version of Dylan’s “Tambourine Man” is a similar situation. The same
rule for remaking songs should also be the same rule for remaking movies. A
movie should only be remade if the original is subpar, but has some good stuff
in it.
Disney’s 1967 animated classic The Jungle Book is not a good movie,
certainly not by today’s standards. I have fond memories of the movie from when
I watched it as a kid, but kids are dumb and their tastes can’t be trusted.
Re-watching the 1967 film, I realized what a jumbled mess it is. The film
starts off on the right foot by having the panther Bagheera watch over a
“mancub” Mowgli that he found when the boy was just a newborn that he then has
to protect from the evil tiger Shere Khan. However, the film quickly devolves
as Bagheera and Mowgli set off on their journey out of the jungle and away from
Shere Khan. There’s an extended scene between Mowgli and a pack of elephants
that makes absolutely no sense, Mowgli meets a group of vultures that weresupposed to be voiced by The Beatles, and Bagheera comes and goes as he
pleases.
Disney’s live action version
takes the same basic premise of their 1967 film, Bagheera and Mowgli journey to
find humans to escape the wrath of Shere Khan, and makes a coherent story out
of it. The 1967 animated movie is like a Bob Dylan song, a sub-par whole with
excellent parts in it, and the 2016 version is like Jimi Hendrix who made an
excellent whole that improved on the good parts of the original.
The one thing I thought the 1967
version could have on the 2016 version is that this story seems perfect for an
animated film and not so much for a live action film, as I thought it would be
difficult to ground this world into any sort of realism. However, I was
mistaken. You are immediately immersed into this world full of taking animals
and you never doubt what you’re seeing for a second.
Further, the CGI on every single
animal is incredible. These animals look like real animals, yet you never for one
second doubt the cartoonish action their taking. I even bought into Baloo
singing “The Bare Necessities”. By introducing Baloo humming the song earlier
and having the full song play later over a montage, its use in the 2016 version
works surprisingly well.
The one thing I didn’t buy was
King Louie’s “I Wanna Be Like You”. I know the film hired Christopher Walken
mainly so he could sing the song, but I didn’t feel it worked within the
context of the movie. If the film had made King Louie more charismatic and have him
be that friendly-over-the-top evil character like say Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds then I thought the
song would have worked. But by having the character be a straight up bully, the
song choice was odd.
That being said, I am nitpicking.
Frankly there isn’t a whole lot to dislike about Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book. Favreau’s
action/adventure films can be hit or miss. Sometimes you get jumbled messes
like Iron Man 2 or Cowboys vs. Aliens. Other times you get
a gem like Iron Man. The Jungle Book falls confidently in the
latter. It has a story to tell and it successfully tells that story. If you’re
going to show your kid any version of The
Jungle Book, show them this live-action version, and feel free to throw
your 1967 animated version in the trash.
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