I agree. The movie sucks. The connection to the characters is horrible (seriously, none of the animals had any reason to like Mowgli. At least the book explained WHY the wolves adopted him, that it took time for Baloo to care about him, that Bagheera liked Mowgli because he could relate to him being an orphan etc. None of that was in this movie, the writers just expect the audience that all the animals like him for no given reason) and Mowgli was literally the only character that received character development even though it was only slight, it's just too bad that that Neel Sethi kid couldn't act convincingly (although I suppose I shouldn't blame him, as he said in an interview that he had no acting experience prior to this movie).
The plot was aimless and rushed (a good example is that Kaa scene. Where the apparently omniscient Kaa hypnotizes Mowgli to show him his origin story, which the writers were unable to depict in a more original way, for literally no reason. And then Mowgli is saved by a deus ex machina).
So this movie is poorly put together, bad character development (nostalgia is the only reason why the audience could possibly like any of the characters) and the movie was as pointless as that Jungle Book 2 cartoon that came out in 2003.
On the other hand, I do give the movie some credit. It had some impressive CGI for the animals, particularly the wolves (although for some reason, the wolves in this movie were European wolves, not Indian wolves), the monkeys and Shere Khan. The environment throughout the movie was like a decent video game cutscene but nothing more than that. I also really liked the scene where Mowgli says goodbye to Raksha by putting his forehead on hers. That scene was well executed and Lupita Nyong'o delivered the lines perfectly. Speaking of which, I also liked the voice performances of Bill Murray, Idris Elba and Christopher Walken (ScarJo, not so much. She ruined Kaa with that monotone hangover voice. Based on the director's need for gender diversity, I get why they swapped Kaa's gender, but what's the point of sexualizing Kaa like that?)
Other than that, this movie was a pointless atrocity. And the critics make it sound as if this movie was better than The Godfather, Citizen Kane and Vertigo put together. Definitely overrated.
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