Let’s wave goodbye to 2015! Good times, bad times we’ve had them all – but you know what they say, as one door closes, another one opens. Over the coming month we’ll be bringing you a snapshot of everything 2016 has to offer – the good, the bad and the ugly. Hold on to your hats folks, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!
It’s about time Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book was revamped for the modern era thanks to the availability of the animal-creating technology and the longing for a reboot. And what do you know, two have come at once!
The first of these forays into the heart of India’s jungles. It is a live action carbon copy of the 1967 original we’ve all come to adore. Whilst past Jungle Book films have tried live action, they have normally ended up with stagnant animals doing a job they weren’t cut out for. 2016 seems to be the year when this flaw in The Jungle Book’s transition to the big screen is finally undone – with style!
You may think, why watch a live action version of the animated classic when our fond memories cannot be overcome? Well, this new version can only fortify our affection for the original even if it doesn’t have much imagination, as it gives plenty of respect and homage to the Disney classic. 2016’s The Jungle Book looks inspired more so by the original rather than wanting to give it a face-lift. Thus allowing The Jungle Book: Origins the lease to expand the Kipling boundaries next year.
But after 47 years, the same story that made our childhoods great deserves to be used, the traits of the characters salvaged and the musical integrity of the animated classic recycled, all, we hope, to a spellbindingly nostalgic effect. Combine the nostalgia of Mowgli, Baloo, Bagheera, King Louie, Kaa and Shere Khan with a voice cast to die for, and it looks like Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book will electrify come April 15th.
And if that wasn’t enough, the final shot in the trailer of Mowgli perched on top of Baloo’s belly as they float peacefully in the water whistling some catchy old tune will infect anyone even remotely aware of this timeless story with pure enchantment.
Omar Khodja
Image sourced from The Jungle Book (2016), Walt Disney Pictures
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