Geek Review: “The Jungle Book”

The big opening this past weekend was the new, sort of live action Jungle Book from Disney.

Hey, I saw that!  What did I think?  Review and mild SPOILERS (but not many) after the cut…

Trailer Time: The Jungle Book

Remember when Mel Brooks decided to take some of his old comedies and turn them into Broadway musicals?  It worked out pretty well for the guy.  Well, Disney decided somewhere along the line that what they really needed to do is take some of its classic animated films and turn them into live action movies.  So, we got a live action Cinderella, that Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland…thing, and the villain’s side of Sleeping Beauty with Maleficent.  But that may be kid’s stuff compared to the next one, namely The Jungle Book, where most of the cast is a bunch of talking animals and one kid.

See the trailer after the cut.  I am not sure if it is even remotely faithful to Rudyard Kipling’s original, but Kipling was clearly not thinking far enough ahead in terms of special effects advancement in the motion picture era.  I mean, really.  Where else were we going to get Bill Murray as Baloo the bear?