The origin of the The Jungle Book is a collection of stories by English author Rudyard Kipling. His stories were first published in magazines in between 1893 and 1894. The original publications contain illustrations, some of which were done by his father, John Lockwood Kipling. Rudyard Kipling was born in India and spent the first six years of his childhood there. He later lived a few years in India as an adult and bases his stories on his time there.
The first movie adaptation of The Jungle Book is the 1967 American animated musical comedy film which was produced by Walt Disney Productions. The plot follows Mowgli, a feral child raised in the Indian jungle by wolves, as his friends Bagheera the Panther and Baloo the Bear try to convince him into leaving the jungle before the evil tiger Shere Khan arrives.
The current adaptation of the Jungle Book is a live action film which features a star studded roster of voice actors. With Bill Murray as Baloo, Ben Kingsley as Bagheera, Idris Elba as Shere Khan, Lupita Nyong’o as Raksha, Scarlett Johansson as Kaa, Giancarlo Esposito as Akela and Christopher Walken as the gargantuan King Louie, just to name a few.
This Jungle Book takes us on a journey with Mowgli and elicits emotions from it’s audience with a captivating storyline. The visuals of this movie are captivating, even as the action shocks and scares you, you will not be able to take your eyes off of the screen. This is a great and modern adaptation of a classic story and it was done fantastically.
I can’t really give anyone spoilers because we’ve all watched The Jungle Book I presume, we all know the story, we know how it goes and how it ends- it’s an all time classic. This live action film just brings an already amazing story to this generation, but as much as it is based on a children’s animation please do not take children under 12 to watch this. They might have nightmares.
One of the best things about this film is that even though they took it to a more serious and dark direction they kept some of the levity that we all loved about the film in the first place, like Mowgli and Baloo singing
The Bare Necessities
FUN FACT: The whole movie was shot in a studio in downtown Los Angeles, most of the surroundings in the movie were digitally rendered.
*Sidenote: Is it just me or did Idris Elba get even more attractive with his voice depiction of Shere Khan?
