Directed by: Wolfgang Reitherman
Written by: Larry Clemmons, Ralph Wright, Ken Anderson, Vance Gerry
Starring: Phil Harris,, Sebastian Cabot, Louis Prima, George Sanders, Sterling Holloway
Rating: [3.5/5]
The law of the jungle comes with a harshness in the way each animal serves as either predator or prey. No rules exist, and things can get fierce, which is not the best place for a young child to traverse alone. Through The Jungle Book we get exactly that as we follow a boy mostly raised by animals who comes to grips with the reality of his situation, making for such an entertaining and musically catchy film.
In the jungles of India, Bagheera (Sebastian Cabot), a leopard, finds a young orphaned boy named Mowgli (Bruce Reitherman). He decides to care for the young boy and raise him within the jungle. Mowgli assimilates well with the other animals. However, a concern arises when the animals hear that Shere Khan (George Sanders), a Bengal tiger, is making a return and he actively dislikes humans, which puts Mowgli in quite a bit of peril.
Filled with fun songs and a general infectious joviality, The Jungle Book carries similarities to other stories where a singular human opts to live amongst animals. We’ve seen this most famously with Tarzan, but on this occasion we get something musicality centered not just on a soundtrack but with it as a musical in and of itself. With that comes some fun sequences throughout as Mowgli makes some great friends in the jungles but also plenty of animals that want to cause him harm.
As for the friends, Bagheera tries to keep him safe, but the big entertainer of the film is Baloo (Phil Harris), a sloth bear who brings a completely different perspective to the life vision that has been presented to Mowgli by others. He simply strives for living life not to the fullest extent but just enough to get by. It’s why he sings the most famous song of the film, “Bare Necessities,” where he sings about just getting by. Baloo brings such a distinct energy to the film that elevates his sequences beyond everything else within the main narrative.
In each stage of the film, Mowgli interacts with different animals and receives a different perspective on how to see the world and exactly what these animals would like to gain from him. While Baloo and Bagheera genuinely care for the young lad, you then have the sequence of King Louie (Louis Prima) and the orangutans who want to learn how to be human, making for its own fun sequence. Each of these sequences formulates the larger issue at hand for Mowgli, which is Bagheera’s wish for him to find humans to live with.
The more time Mowgli spends around the animals, the likelihood of him being either eaten or killed for the fun of it continues. Bagheera and Baloo can only protect him for so long from other animals. This personal journey for Mowgli, although difficult to fully capture for a young boy becomes the emotional underpinning of the entire film. He must, through these experiences, learn where he truly belongs, and although at the moment he may feel it lies with the animals in the jungle, he learns throughout the film where his future should lie. One can only be hypnotized and almost consumed by a python so many times before you realize that perhaps jungle life is not for you. With that said, the animation and general tone of the film allow for the dangers of this situation for Mowgli to be ever-present while also having this fun liveliness to it that makes it still a great film that kids can watch without fearing for the lead character. The Jungle Book does a strong job in that respect as it builds out this world to serve two purposes, and it succeeds in both.
Filled with great songs, fun characters, beautiful animation, and telling a good coming-of-age tale, The Jungle Book has the goods. It effortlessly entertains as this colorful jungle comes to life for our entertainment and builds a world with lovely and dangerous creatures alike. All of this comes in service of the personal journey Mowgli goes through in his various interactions with different animals and the way they live their lives. Everything culminates into a film with so much to appreciate, as it certainly holds up all of these years later as one of the better movies in the early catalog of Disney animated films.
