Jungle Book Movie Review

I think for as long as I can remember, I've had this strange fascination with India. I perceived it as a land of jungles and exotic animals, strange Bollywood musicals and people who wore turbans and spoke an otherworldly language. This goes back even before my parents went on a missionary trip to India a few years ago, and now that I think about it, I think it goes back to when I was a child watching Disney's The Jungle Book. I remember seeing that film when I was very young and being captivated by this story about an exotic and far away land that I knew so little about. In my opinion, Disney's new live action remake of the Jungle Book did an even better job than the original at portraying the mystical exoticism of India.

From the very start of the film we see a shot of India's various different animals drinking at a water hole, while haunting Indian music plays. This does a great job of setting the tone for the entire film. At one point we also see a small village where the people seem to be performing some kind of bonfire ritual, which was also very interesting to see. Probably the most interesting part was hearing about the animals mythology regarding how elephants created the jungle, which sounded very much like something the ancient Indians might well have believed.

An exciting story and memorable performances from Ben Kingsley, Bill Murray, the king-emperor Christopher Walken, and Idris Elba round out the film to make it probably one of the best movies I've seen so far this year, and I definitely recommend it.