Sent to me by a viewer of my youtube channel. I didnt really know what I was getting into when I popped in ‘The Jungle Book: The Movie’, but it didnt take more than 10 minutes and a quick google search to confirm my gut feeling on this one.

This isnt a movie…rather, its more of an ‘Omnibus’. See; This adaptation of ‘The Jungle Book’ was originally released in 2011 or 2012 and ended up being a 156 episode TV series, with each episode being around 11 minutes long. And each self contained story would begin where the last one ended and end where the next one begins (in a very loose way so as to help with syndication)…And what this film is, is essentially 6 stories of the TV series, with the titles and credits lopped off, stitched ‘Human Centipede’ style together into one long unbroken 62 minute long ‘mega episode’…

The 6 stories include, an episode where Mowgli has to fight an agrieved wolf for his right to be able to ‘belong’ to the wolf pack that helped raise him, an episode where Mowgli tries to find the ‘bravest’ animal in the Jungle. An episode where Mowgli teams up with a monkey to scare away humans from discovering an ancient city of treasure, an episode where Shere Khan, Baloo and Bagheera are trying to find breakfast, an episode where Mowgli falls down a well, and an episode where an elephant who wants to show off ends up in trouble, leaving it down to Mowgli and the gang to try and rescue him.

and; as far as this goes as a TV series? I.E – 6 self contained short stories set in the Jungle book universe? I thought it was pretty okay. Its written for kids aged between 4 and 7 years old i’d say and its designed pretty intrinsically to only hold their attention briefly, with a small moral lesson, before dumping them into something with a bit more mainstream appeal. The animation is colourful, vibrant and the direction is fairly fun (though, not a patch on the disney version). ‘Inoffensive’ is what i’d probably label this as, something that would probably exit my brain as soon as the credits rolled.

Why the low score here then? Because this ‘film’ version is SO lazily thrown together, to the point that it quite quickly becomes almost painful to watch…See…a lone episode of this, 11 minutes of my time, is fine as part of a viewing block. but taking 6 almost totally unrelated, INCREDIBLY basic stories that are only loosely tied by a flimsy ‘bridging’ element at the start and end of each episode. that quite often retread similar ground and dont really offer much in the way of complexity. And LITERALLY just topping and tailing the titles and credits off them, at MOST adding in a cross fade and then calling it a day is BEYOND a dull viewing experience.

They had the chance to do something a bit interesting with this, maybe re-edit the episodes so we have 2-3 plots happening concurrently with 156 episodes to choose from, they almost certainly could have cut this film version to have 2-3 plot points that cut across each other and form a makeshift 3 act structure that differentiates them enough from the TV series.

But the laziness of this release to just stitch 6 interconnected episodes together and chuck it out the door is horrendous. They dont even bother creating unique titles or credits for this ‘movie’ release. they just use the TV’s titles and tweak the credits list slightly, but even then they miss some of the cast out.

Add to that that the voice acting throughout is a little too ‘stagey’ and doesnt really (to me) fit the tone and vibe of an animated kids series, it feels more like a radio play or on stage performance vocally, and the fact that they dont amend any of the sound edits here, meaning we get a LOT of repetition of music between episodes. and ultimately? I really dont think kids would appreciate this film version.

If you can find the isolated ‘TV’ edits of this series, I think younger children may get on with it fine enough, but recut into this edition? the pacings terrible, the editing is ultra basic and feels like the editor couldnt be arsed to do anything other than stitch them together end to end and click export.

It feels like an attempt to squeeze some extra cash out of unknowing parents, and an ultra cheap attempt at that. Like I say, go find the TV version and maybe catch one or two. You’ll probably think they’re okay. Avoid this.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-jungle-book-the-movie/