Mowgli: The Darker Jungle Book

The Jungle Book isn’t a new story. It started as a book, becoming two animated Disney films, and was later turned into a live action movie. Netflix decided to release their own version of the timeless tale with their new movie Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle. However, The Ringer explains this process wasn’t just Netflix making their own movie. The streaming platform is known for taking movies from bigger studios if the studio feels the film won’t perform well at the box office. Basically, “The streamer will often create, and acquire, the films Hollywood rarely makes anymore now that it’s focused on superhero flicks and franchise reboots.”

Beaten To The Punch

Mowgli, which was directed by Andy Serkis, was originally going to be released by Warner Bros, but they decided to hand it off for one big reason. Disney had already done it. The Ringer explains that the studio knew better than to expect audiences to buy tickets to a movie they felt they had just seen barely two years ago. While the story of a boy raised by a wolf pack and hunted by a tiger may be similar, Mowgli is different enough from The Jungle Book for it to be worth the watch.

Opening Scene

The first glaring difference between the two films is the fact that Mowgli is rated PG-13, allowing it to be darker than the Disney film that came before it. According to BBC, “Director Andy Serkis says this film isn't terrifying but there are some scary moments.” However, a film doesn’t need to be scary in order to be dark. The first scene is evidence enough of that.

Just like every other retelling, it starts with Mowgli’s parents being killed by a tiger while the baby lies somewhere nearby, helpless. In other film adaptions, it’s mostly implied, but Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle wants us to know exactly what happened, according to The Ringer. We don’t see the parents getting mauled, but we hear sounds meant to stick with us and even see baby Mowgli covered in the blood of his parents.

Kill Or Be Killed

The motto “kill or be killed” is repeated throughout the movie and something Mowgli has to keep in mind. There is a scene of an older Mowgli swimming underwater that The Ringer calls one of the tensest scenes in recent movie history.

The Ringer writes, “Shere Khan approaches to take a drink. He’s just killed an animal, so his tongue touching the surface turns the water dark red; Mowgli has to remain perfectly still and hold his breath so as to not attract attention from the creature hellbent on mauling him.”

The jungle is a scary place, and while other movies made it look more fun than anything, Serkis wants us to know just how dangerous it can be for a human child.

Baloo: Scrappy Survivor

Baloo the bear has always been a fun-loving mentor to Mowgli who loves to sing, or at least hum, the Bare Necessities. Serkis voices Baloo in this movie, and he also turned the goofy bear into a scrappy animal who teaches Mowgli how to survive the jungle. The Ringer goes far enough to state that he might as well be called “Baloo the Bear Grylls.”

Bear Necessities might be cut from the film, but that’s not all. BBC claims, “If you're a big fan of Bare Necessities, and King of the Swingers, then you might be disappointed because there's not a single sing-a-long track in the whole film.”

The Ringer states that, overall, it doesn’t appear that any of the characters seem to have any fun in this movie.

Motion Capture Made Creepy

With Serkis as the director, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he wanted to rely on motion capture to bring the characters to life. For those who don’t know, motion capture (mo-cap) uses extensive technology to detect the smallest of expressions on an actor and adds them to a non-human character. These lead to nonhuman creatures feeling human enough to almost be scary.

It works well a lot of the time, according to The Ringer, like for Rise of the Planet of the Apes and King Kong, mostly, because King Kong and Caeser are animals that already appear human-like. It becomes creepy when bears, snakes, and tigers now have the faces of people. The Ringer explains that the team behind Mowgli probably didn’t intend for this creepy effect, but it happened nonetheless and feels eerie.

The Gritty Jungle Book

The Ringer explains that when you boil it down, Mowgli is just a gritty and dark retelling of a classic story. It had to be released on Netflix because the PG-13 rating and disturbing scenes would have driven away younger audiences, which is the main demographic that would have brought in ticket sales. Living on Netflix has been described as perhaps the best move for a movie like this.