My Movie Review on Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle · 11:47pm Apr 13th, 2021

Greetings and salutations, my friends.

This is your top-of-the-line film, TV show, and episode reporter here with another review.

Today, I'm gonna give you guys my take of "Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle".

Here's the rundown of this tale:

Mowgli is a human boy raised by wolves after his birth parents were killed by the man-eating Bengal tiger, Shere Khan. Ever since he was an infant, he has also been watched over by his guardians: Bagheera the black panther, and Baloo the Himalayan brown bear.

However, when Mowgli discovers his human heritage, he becomes conflicted over who he is and where he belongs.

Is he truly a human? A wolf? Or something else entirely?

In the midst of this, Shere Khan returns to the wolf pack's part of the jungle, and all for one purpose alone: To kill Mowgli.

Not gonna lie, I've been wanting to make a review of this movie for quite a long time. The last time I saw it was around last year, but just in case...I decided to give the film a second look in preparation for analyzing it.

This was also the final movie that I watched via the Netflix streaming service, because my family and I cancelled our memberships on its not too long ago. It was mainly because it was becoming too expensive to be a member of it, and it no longer had enough variety in content for us to continue being a part of it.

So, want to know what I think of this movie?

In all honesty, I've always been a fan of the animated film by Walt Disney and the live-action adaption by Jon Favreau, but "Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle"...is a movie that really rocked the house!

The movie as a whole is a surprisingly underrated gem, that's for sure.

For instance, the acting, casting, characters, and character development were incredible!

I loved how every performer fit their roles like they were born to take them on, and they brought an astounding amount of depth and personality to their characters that made them instantly three-dimensional. Every piece of dialogue they had, they projected and savored with flavor; they portrayed their parts with remarkable power too. Plus, the characters and character development in articulation were phenomenal. Out of all the performers and characters, my favorites were that of Rohan Chand as Mowgli, Andy Serkis as Baloo, Christian Bale as Bagheera, Benedict Cumberbatch as Shere Khan, and Cate Blanchett as Kaa.

The direction by Andy Serkis, and the screenplay by Callie Kloves, were nicely done as well.

If the goal that Serkis and Kloves had was to make the movie as faithful to the style and tone of Kipling's books as possible while also improving on the material in their own way, then I'm proud to say "Mission Accomplished". Everything about this adaption was better than the source material because the narrative managed to tie itself together, be easy to follow, and keep focusing on the story's core. The core being Mowgli's journey of self-discovery. The film as a whole was one of the most emotionally-invested films I've ever watched, and it wasn't without a sense of personality either. Plus, the action sequences were awesome to watch, and the characters wonderfully drove the story along. Serkis and Kloves also did a great job at making Mowgli himself a much more lovable protagonist than he was in the books too.

The motion capture and CGI effects were impressive, if I may add.

In every way, Serkis and company did the one thing that wasn't accomplished in the 2019 version of Disney's "The Lion King": They managed to incorporate facial expressions into the animals, which deeply matched the emotions that the performers imbued in their characters. The crew may not have made the visuals the most realistic-looking, but that's okay. The overall visualization was more like that of a storybook brought into the real world, and I think that's a great look for an adaption based on a book.

Finally, the music that was composed by Nitin Sawhney was magnificent.

Even though the movie wasn't a musical like the animated version by Disney, Sawhney created a score that brimmed with emotion beyond anything. His melodies marvelously matched the feelings of the characters and every moment in the movie, and the crescendo it carried had a sense of something remarkably fitting for a film taking place in India.

In conclusion, "Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle" is an under-appreciated masterpiece and an absolute blast to watch. The performances and characters were awesome, the motion capture and CGI effects were terrific, etc. It's also what I'd like to classify as one of the best PG-13 movies around.

So, I rate "Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle" five out of five stars.

To Warner Bros. & Netflix: I encourage the two of you highly to please release this film on DVD & Blu-ray, because this movie's something I'd love to have in my personal collection at some point. Releasing the movie on home video is also something that I'm pretty sure would be a great way to help you guys earn some money, if I may be honest.