A lot of this movie just feels so recycled that it’s hard to view it as anything more than another Jungle Book... Not even Jungle Book 2, but ’’Jungle Book Again.’’ It starts out ok with some new material but quickly becomes the original movie (in elements, anyway.) with just some twists here or there.
First you have Mowgli’s adoptive parents (A big heavy dude married to a young, skinny beauty who looks like his daughter - thank you, Hollywood Gender Politics.) and you get this weird feeling when the guy actually says to Mowgli, ’’I’m very disappointed in you. You put all the children in danger! You deliberately disobeyed me!’’ as though it has been copied right out of a certain Lion movie we’ve all seen...
There is a nice toe-tapper in Mowgli’s ’’Jungle Rhythm, ’’ and an engaging little smaller ManCub in Ranjan, (Who upstages Mowgli in a big way.) but as soon as the story moves into the jungle, it’s all disappointment.
Bagheera and Baloo have none of the more ’’adult’’ exchanges that were in the first film, and instead their dealings rely entirely on pratfalls and cartoonish physical action as everyone tries to stop Baloo from going back to the village to get Mowgli. Then the elephants show up for no reason beyond, ’’Look, it’s the elephants! Remember them from the first one? Well, here they are!’’ and Kaa appears for that very same reason.
Also I’m getting the feeling that Disney movies are turning into the John Goodman/Jim Cummings/Tony Jay Show rather than a legitimate exploration of the realm of voice talent, though I guess I should just be happy that David Ogden Stiers and Jodi Benson are not playing every character of late...
Goodman does a passable job as Baloo - (The real tragedy is the death of Ed Gilbert, who performed Baloo ideally in the old Tale Spin series, and would have been a welcome talent here.) but there is just not enough depth to the character anymore.
All he talks about is the village, or getting Mowgli back, or the Bare Necessities; there is almost no dialogue that strays from this, not even some verbal explanation of Baloo’s feelings about all of it, and no funny quibbling with Bagheera like the first JB had. It makes Baloo a caricature of his earlier self. And then there’s Bagheera, who hardly does anything in this movie. He’s been sidelined by Shanti, the village girl who seems interesting at first, but none of her character details are resolved, and it is never made clear what (if anything) she feels for Mowgli. She goes into the jungle with Ranjan just to be there and get involved in the trouble that ensues.
A lot of the movie is like that: things just happen for the sake of it, not to move the story along, and this would be ok except that these interludes are not particularly fun to watch. For example, Baloo and Mowgli go to the ruins to ’’hideout, ’’ but the only reason they really go is to have a big musical routine with all the animals.
NOTHING ELSE HAPPENS THERE, and they both end up leaving as soon as it’s over. And yeah, they took you there in the original JB, but at least they provided some reason for it - Mowgli was held captive there and Baloo had to go rescue him, and THEN they left. (And they even worked it into the story of how Baloo was not equipped to care for Mowgli and look out for him, else he would not have been kidnapped. That’s a nice connecting thread you’d find in an original Disney movie, but never in a sequel...)
Then we have the vultures, who were the boring low point that went on and on in the original Jungle Book. Mercifully, they play a much smaller part here, but their presence is still aggravating because it is pointless, even with the addition of Phil Collins. (For Phil Collins playing sidekicks that are actually cute and somewhat amusing, see Balto.)
Shere Khan is himself, still pretty shallow, but it works because most Disney villains are, and he needs no motive beyond wanting to eat Mowgli. But there are a couple of confusing scenes here that involve him:
SPOILER WARNING
DANGER: SPOILERS AHEAD !! Prepare the Life Boats!
One is that Shere Khan is shown being harassed by the vultures, and he manages to grab Lucky and ’’kill’’ him. Not that it’s put out there for you to see (Of course not. This is a Disney sequel, after all.) but it is very clearly implied. I don’t know about you, but when I see a Tiger grab a vulture securely by the neck and comment about the paradoxical nature of the name, ’’Lucky, ’’ I think Death. But then later, Lucky shows up none the worse for wear, and it is never explained how he escaped or survived. Also there is a moment when a massive boulder falls on Shere Khan, and his death seems certain. But no, it turns out it was actually a giant statue that was hollow inside, and now Shere Khan is trapped forever.
The end of JB2 is odd, too, as it is played out in a ruined temple that has a lot of (convenient) hot lava flowing around, and there is even a big chasm that the characters have to jump across, and it has lava at the bottom of it. Mowgli and Shanti and Shere Khan make the jump, and a great production is made of how narrowly they avoid falling to their deaths (Yeah, right.) But then big, lumbering Baloo shows up and approaches the temple, and they never explain how he gets across this gap.
The lithe tiger could barely make it, so Baloo would have no chance, right? Well, we’ll never know, because he instantly just appears on the other side and never has to deal with it. The lava is a whole other thing, too, as it’s used as some kind of threat in this movie. As soon as you see it, you’re positive that Shere Khan will end up falling down there; it could have no other reason for being, right? But no one actually falls in it- Not even Shere Khan. So why is it even there? Wouldn’t an empty pit have sufficed? In a movie that seems to have a lot of things appearing for the sake of it, you have lava that serves no purpose at all, not even a callback to the original Jungle Book.
Then there’s the ending, which is highly predictable, despite how much you wish it weren’t. Disney does what is ’’right, ’’ and makes Mowgli go back to the village even though he doesn’t really fit in there. Then again, Baloo and Bagheera have so little personality now that I guess you can’t blame Mowgli for leaving. But of course there is the obligatory reprise (again) of Bare Necessities, and a communal happy ending (This a sequel, remember, so we can’t have any material that is particularly sad or affecting. Even the villain isn’t allowed to die.) and a reconciliation with the big dude and his skinny daughter-- I mean wife-- where the big dude acknowledges that the jungle will always be part of Mowgli. (Doy. We could have told you that before all the nonsense started. In fact it was downright weird for the big dude to be trying to convince Mowgli that the jungle was not a safe place. I mean, he was only raised there...)
Score: I don’t know... C- ? It was just too weird
Plllzzzzzz...This is my own review...pllzzzz comment on it!