The Jungle Book is a story that is ironically one that many people don’t realise is based on a book by Rudyard Kipling based on the man-cub Mowgli and how he learned to adapt and accept his living environments and who or what he truly is. The reason for how overshadowed it is probably comes from how little the cinematic versions capture the true essence and darker themes of the book; the animated Disney version is home to a few good songs and some memorable characters, but had very little of the book’s material within the story and dumbed down a lot of its themes, the 1994 live-action film with Cary Elwes was so far off that it worked for neither a book fan or a movie fan, and the more recent 2016 tried to combine the book and animated film in a ambitious but clearly messy final product. With no version perfectly capturing the books ideals aside from a Chuck Jones animated short, Andy Serkis decided to try and make his own version in a Netflix original movie made in 2018 titled ‘’Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle’’. Set in the Indian Jungle, a man-cub is found by a panther named Bagheera (voiced by Christian Bale) and decides to give him to the wolves to raise him among them. Growing up in the Jungle, a young Mowgli (played by Rohan Chand) is trained by Bagheera and the bear Baloo (voiced by Andy Serkis) how to survives as a wolf even though members of his family mock him for his different look. His life is threatened when Shere Khan (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) returns to the jungle and wants his blood, so it’s decided that Mowgli be taken to the man village where he is not greeted with open arms., being kept in a cage as an animal to begin with. Once he’s grown accustom, his wolf family tells him that Khan has taken over the pack and is threatening them all, so Mowgli must return and kill Shere Khan. With a story as recognisable as any Disney property and a presentation just as predictable, this darker version still fails in capturing an interesting memorable experience with this story. While nothing is outright awfully done, it’s a mixture of various mediocre elements spliced in with forgettable writing that makes it pretty pointless to watch.

The movie does try to actually retell the story of the book beat for beat but doesn’t manage to flesh out many important elements even though it’s almost a two-hour long movie. This version uses the books outlines, but not its content, rather trying to concoct a story through significant moments of the story rather than focusing on effectively putting them together. There are moments that feel like pointless detours that waste time on the film and others that needed more dedication for the story to have a impact, specifically the time in the village which is quite short and a bit too simplistically happy after a rough start, there’s nothing complex discovered or gained there. The earlier moments in the jungle are effective enough because it feels like the movie will eventually call back to, but aside from a moment with an elephant and a particularly disturbed moment with a baby wolf, everything seems to amount to nothing by the film’s conclusion, rather padding until it reached its second act. It spent so long in the jungle that the time in the village isn’t fleshed out and therefore not allowed to be interesting, making the whole point of the movie feel weightless. The movie does have a darker tone than others, but even that isn’t used to an effective level outside of a few shots of blood, but it never felt more adult than other versions and didn’t take any real risks outside of a select kill confirmed by the end. Ironically this movie seems to use too much of the book but without transforming it well into movie format, stretching out with pointless add-ons that don’t influence the themes, and underplay a lot of ideas and messages overall.

The characters are all names that everyone recognises, but that doesn’t mean that they will act the same as everyone remembers them. Many of the characters have different roles or completely different attitudes from other versions which in some ways is refreshing for a new take, but some never really get the chance to show themselves off. Baloo who used to be a main player is barely in the movie outside of a few lessons and a pointless rescue mission from monkeys, Kaa is given a cool new position as one of the most important figures in the Jungle, almost viewed as the jungle’s god who can see the past and future, yet she’s barely in the film either. The only characters that seem to share any real connections between each other is Mowgli and Bagheera, as they are the most used characters and the only ones where there is time taken out of the movie to have them converse with each other, the others aren’t even interesting enough for Mowgli to react off of in an engaging way. The acting is some respects in kinda similar; everyone does an decent job, but their characters are more representations of themselves rather than their characters, Baloo is just Andy Serkis doing a voice, Benedict Cumberbatch is just portraying himself through a CG tiger, even though Cate Blanchett does pretty good as Kaa, she is just doing her Lord of the Rings tone. Rohan Chand does a fine job but is stuck to be the typical boy of the movie. However, Christian Bale does a surprisingly effective job as Bagheera even if the material he has isn’t that special.

The movies effects are very split in terms of quality; as the effects themselves aren’t very realistic looking in the slightest. While some of the locations can look nice at moments, the animals themselves look fake but in a completely different way, as while the textures on them look fine, their faces are incredibly off-putting and odd as it’s the actors themselves motion-captured onto the CG animal. While that doesn’t look right or real, this technique does allow for a lot of great expressions on the animals which you wouldn’t be able to do if you wanted them to look realistic, so the payoff is a non-realistic looking creature with great emotional display. The lighting can be a bit dark in moments but when it’s used in conjunction with a sunrise or when fire is involved, the jungle can look quite good in contrast. The writing is very forgettable, not using any of the book’s intense and memorable words which would have helped out to extenuate the movies dark tone.

The Jungle Book may never be perfectly interpreted from the books to create a fully accurate version, and Andy Serkis deserves some credit for at least trying to make one closer in spirit, but when ambition fails, it’s that much more tragic. In an attempt to make it darker and closer to the book, it failed to flesh out engaging material and left a hollow feeling for all audiences. Every Jungle Book version has left something for people to remember; the animated one has some good songs and characters, the live action Disney one has some ground-breaking technology, even the 1994 version is so terrible it has that going for it, this one has nothing that’s unique about and worth remembering. As a product, it’s totally harmless and has a few good actors, but it’s probably best to leave this one as the underground version. Just another version of a familiar story, if it’s what someone wants to see, go for it, but otherwise it’s not a necessity.