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Wonderful character development!

Fresh and Exciting

Excellent but underrated film

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

A beautiful version of the well known book. I've seen quite a few and this is my favourite one.Jason Scott Lee is a pleasure to watch - so natural. Beautiful performance, beautiful setting, a lot of messages sent to ponder over... Perfect to watch with your young children on a Sunday afternoon.I have no idea why the rating is so low, it's worth watching as it's beautifully made.

Not a bad adaption, I would rate it a 7.0. Nevertheless, I still consider that "The Jungle Book" 1942 version in gorgeous Technicolor is rather better. On my seventh birthday I was given a Pan Book paperback entitled Mowgli Stories. The only illustration was on the cover: against a vivid dark blue and black background a naked adolescent Mowgli is depicted wielding a flaming red and orange branch in resistance to the villainous tiger Shere Khan, who has come to claim him from the wolf pack. I no longer have that book but my research indicates it was published by Pan Book's in 1948. The paperback contained all eight of the Mowgli stories in roughly serial order taken from a miscellaneous collection of stories found in The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book. Although the movie's longer title is "Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book", it does not deserve to have Kipling's name attached to it. The Mowgli tales as Kipling wrote them are far superior to the weak screenplay of the film which diverges widely from the original and develops an entirely new set of characters. Would a late Victorian army colonel really contemplate his only daughter marrying even a refined native boy in those days? I think not. One may forgive easily forgive the numerous careless goofs. After all it is Walt Disney stuff not a documentary about British India in late Victorian times or whether the fuel containers on the horse cart should have the word "paraffin" or "kerosene" stencilled on them etc. However, I have seen far worse gaffs in some otherwise praiseworthy Oscar-winning movies, such as"Lawrence of Arabia". I wonder if one day somebody will make a new non-cartoon film entitled "The Mowgli Stories" which is much more faithful to them than what has been produced so far. It probably could not be contained in a time span of less than three hours and who would want to sit in a cinema theatre that long anyway? Perhaps the best way of presenting the Mowgli stories on screen as Rudyard Kipling envisioned them would be to produce an eight-episode made for TV series. Okay, I have grouched enough. In fairness, I enjoyed the film as it stands. After all my objections why do I give it a 7/10? First the cinematography and staged scenery were good quality, second animal handling was well done and third the cast was excellent. The lead star, Jason Lee Jones was first rate, just right for the part. Several Indian commentators on this site have disliked the fact that Jason is not an Indian and they also claim he does not even look like one. This is rather a pointless objection in my view. India (without Pakistan and Bangladesh) has about 1.2 billion human inhabitants and a long history of invasion and conquests with much interbreeding. Thus there are numerous tribes, ethnics and races in India. Indians themselves display a range of complexions from the ebony black of a Tamil to the light olive skins of a Mediterranean person further north. Jason reminds me of many Bengalis I have known where slightly Mongoloid features are common. To ignore the physical diversity of its inhabitants would be to deny India's cultural, ethnic and racial diversity which makes that country so interesting. Instead, I would have thought that Indians would more likely to have objected to the way they are depicted in the movie, either as rather silly or villainous. In fairness several of the British officers are depicted as silly and/or villainous as well.Downgrading natives was definitely not Kipling's style. In the Jungle Books and his novel "Kim" Rudyard Kipling reveals a true love of greater India and its people and culture. He was one of the few intelligent imperialists (called "Empire Builders" until well into the 1950s) who sought to understand the local cultures in whatever corner of the Empire they found themselves assigned for years. The could either isolate themselves in compounds or mingle. Kipling mingled and studied the cultures and manners of Her Majesty's exotic subjects though as a man of his day he did not commit the "sin" of "going native". As the film is deliberately light-hearted Disney stuff bordering on comedy one could even accept John Cleese portraying - as he did in the Monty Python films and as Basil in the "Fawlty Towers" TV show- a very silly, uncouth, and highly satirical Englishman. One final point I need to make is that in my view the movie should have been rated PG-13 rather than PG. There are some particularly ugly scenes including man eaten by a tiger, by implication only, in one instance or another explicitly mauled to death by Shere Khan. That is scary stuff for a small child. Worse are scenes of a soldier slowing sinking to his death in a quagmire, an Indian bad guy being squashed by man-trapping devices and another man drowned in slow motion. Also young children tend to become very upset if animals are hurt or killed. There is a scene where an animal is shot and depicted to be in great pain. Anyone who cares to read the Mowgli stories (best after and not before you see this movie) will find them published in full at:http://thenostalgialeague.com/olmag/kipling-jungle-book.html A site dedicated to Kipling's work that is well worth visiting.

27 years after the release of the famous animated Disney feature, "The Jungle Book", a live action Disney movie with the same title came into theatres. Both films feature characters from Rudyard Kipling's book of the same name, which I have never read. I think it was on the last week of 1994, in between Christmas and New Year's, when I went to see this live action version in the theatre. I was eight years old, and can't remember exactly what I thought, but certainly don't recall finding it boring. Shortly after that, I remember seeing at least a bit of it again at school, but don't recall seeing any of it after that until last night, when I saw it for the first time in well over a decade. It looked mildly disappointing at first, but didn't stay that way.Set in Victorian-era India, five year old Mowgli goes on a hunting expedition with his father in the jungles of India and quickly befriends Katherine "Kitty" Brydon, the five year old daughter of English colonel Geoffrey Brydon. After a tiger named Shere Khan kills Mowgli's father, the little boy finds himself lost in the jungle, and is raised by animals. He grows up here, living like the jungle animals and learning how to communicate with them. One day, Kitty happens to be in the jungle again, and Mowgli sees her, which lures him back to the village where his childhood friend still lives with her father. Kitty and Dr. Julien Plumford begin to reintroduce him to human life and teach him English, and Mowgli shows Kitty what life is like in the jungle. While these two are nice to him, there are other British colonists who look down on him, including Kitty's arrogant suitor, Captain William Boone. Mowgli is also disgusted when he learns about human laws.Around the beginning, when Mowgli and Kitty are five years old, it gets pretty sappy between the two. The musical score is really overdone in some scenes, such as the one where Mowgli discovers Monkey City, and often gets too sappy in the romantic scenes. There are several groin-kicking scenes, which are unnecessary, especially for a family movie. Despite the severe flaws, however, there's more good than bad. Jason Scott Lee does a very nice job playing the likable lead, and the acting in general is good here, including memorable performances from Lena Headey as Kitty and John Cleese as Dr. Plumford. The humour in this film is never hilarious, but is sometimes at least mildly amusing, such as the part where Dr. Plumford says, "No. That's not a boat. That's Queen Victoria." I think casting a former Monty Python comedian (Cleese) in the movie helped. The adventure often gets exciting, very much so later on, and there are touching moments as well. One particularly heart-wrenching scene is Mowgli finding Baloo severely injured. This is a scene I clearly remember from my first viewing! Even though the 1967 and 1994 films have the same title and several of the same characters, and they are both from Disney, one being animated and the other live action is not the only major difference. The plot is a little different, and this film is significantly darker than the cartoon version. There are live action movies with talking animals (such as the hit 1995 family film, "Babe"), but this is not one of them. I'm not saying this is a good or bad thing, but it is another notable difference between these two Disney flicks. However, despite being very different, both films are good. One of the reasons for the PG rating of this version is the violence, which occasionally includes some fairly gory scenes. I wouldn't recommend this film for kids much younger than I was during its theatrical run, but for older kids and others who like adventure movies, this COULD be entertaining. It's no masterpiece, but it is fairly underrated.

I bought the movie for Jason Scott Lee and his amazing pecs. I rate it a 10/10 for that erotic aspect alone. Very satisfying. Other than that there are a few cool tributes to the Sabu films along the way. Outside of those special interests, this is extremely flimsy storytelling and a film that simply can't stand on its own.Stephen Sommers - a director often credited for taking worthwhile projects and ruining them completely - is mostly to blame. His approach to acting seems to be "whatever, dude". The lapse of focus is clear on the actor's faces - they actually look confused and have a hard time connecting their dialog to one another. Sommers prefers resting on the "production values" of a jungle that looks like it was made to order from Pier One.If you like Kipling steer clear. If you like the '67 animated version, read the book instead. If you like jungle ambiance you'd be better served with a Ramar Of The Jungle episode or a Bomba programmer. John Cleese is not funny here and adds nothing except embarrassment. The wild animals are real, but one of Disney's Indian producers evidently drugged them because they just sit around for their photo op and are allowed no input on the storyline. Once the script makes that fateful detour into the soggy predictable romance it's game over.This version was a bomb in 1994 and, along with Rapa Nui, affectively ended Jason Scott Lee's career in Hollywood. Sadly he was never seen topless again.