Mowgli Review

WARNER BROS: "Hey guys! Check out our new movie! It's called Mowgli and it's a DARK and GRITTY and LIVE ACTION version of that Disney movie with the singing bear and monkeys that you all love. But it's DARK and GRITTY! And directed by Andy Serkis!"

MOVIEGOERS: "Huh?"

WARNER BROS: "Aren't you impressed?"

MOVIEGOERS: "But Disney just made a "live-action" Jungle Book movie two years ago."

WARNER BROS: "Wait a minute, WHAT?"

MOVIEGOERS: "Yeah, it made almost a billion dollars."

WARNER BROS: "Aw dagnabbit! BUT WAIT. That one wasn't DARK and GRITTY!"

MOVIEGOERS: "Yeah but we honestly don't care."

WARNER BROS: "Awwwwwwww............"

a few months later........

WARNER BROS: "Hey Netflix, you want a movie?"

Yeah, so this was a thing that got made and now it's here because the studio just wanted to give this movie a quiet and painless death rather than watch it become a spectacular and legendary bomb at the box office. Even Netflix doesn't seem confident about it. They didn't even start promoting it until November. Granted, they didn't start promoting The Cloverfield Paradox until the day it was released. Still, it doesn't seem like they remotely care about this film. They just grabbed it and hoped for the best. They also used a marketing strategy that I call the Alpha strategy. Like the titular film, I'm referring to a film that was originally marketed as a dark or gritty film but is later advertised as a lighter and more family friendly film. That is a telling sign that the studio has lost all faith in the film. So basically what I'm trying to say is only one person on planet earth wanted this movie to exist simply because it was his passion project: Andy Serkis.

I had a sliver of hope for the film after I saw that it was getting a somewhat warm response (it doesn't have one anymore). Also, I forgot how stacked the cast was. Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, (guess who?) Andy Serkis, and BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH among others! Gee might as well see if he can have another good performance before I watch his all time low: the new Grinch movie. Maybe this isn't the disaster I thought it was? Maybe it just wasn't marketable, so they sold it to Netflix. Who knows? That's what I was thinking the on December 6th, the day before Mowgli was released to everyone in the world who has a Netflix account.

Then December 7th came, and I watched the entire thing.

No no no no no! This can't be happening! This can't be the actual movie! OH NO! NOOOOOOOO!!! 

It's a disaster: A disaster from start to finish. It's not even hilariously a disaster. It's actually kinda depressing how bad this film is, considering that this was Serkis's passion project. But by the end of the film, I had one question: "HOW DID THIS GET MADE?" Sure, it's nice that the filmmakers did (at the very least) want to make this movie good. That's absolutely fine. It still doesn't change the fact that this film is broken and practically everything about it is WRONG. 

Let's begin with one of the core issues which should be the film's biggest strength if it weren't so broken: the visuals. At first glance, they look fine. The animals are well textured and the fur looks realistic and all that jazz. But then, you start to realize that something is horribly wrong. It took me a while to put my finger on what it was that was bothering me, but it eventually came to me. What is the one thing that Andy Serkis loves more than anything else? If you said Motion Capture, you are correct! So yes, the animals are the product of MoCap. And after I looked at some behind the scenes photos, I saw that it was full body MoCap. That includes the actors' faces.

Oh no.

When you MoCap an actor's face, it also capture their emotions. FOR SOME REASON, the filmmakers thought it would be an absolutely dandy idea to incorporate HUMAN EMOTIONS into realistic animal faces. What a great idea! Why don't people normally do this?

BECAUSE THIS HAPPENS!

If this hasn't proven my point, just wait until you see the horrifyingly rendered turd-burglar (best way I could describe him) Bhoot. Keep in mind that this is an original character for this film, who adds nothing to the plot except for the fact that he's Mowgli's best friend (Mowgli eventually and accurately tells him that he's a nightmare to look at). Anyways, here he is!

WHAT.

HOW.

WHY.

WHO ASKED FOR THIS?

This is a character I'm supposed to sympathize with. But I'm sorry: it's impossible for me! It's impossible for me to sympathize with a nightmare-inducing animated wolf with Andy Serkis's son's  emotions (no offense towards him, it just looks weird)! I CAN'T DO IT! I CAN'T!

Visuals aside, the plot is incoherent. There are so many scenes in this film that add absolutely nothing to the plot; they're just there. This is problematic not only because theses scenes are, well, pointless, but they also ruin the scenes that actually do serve something (ANYTHING) important to the plot. Because when I did come across some of the most important scenes in film, I didn't care. I had been bombarded with a plethora of scenes that were in the film for no reason. So what's the point of caring about the plot when the film actively goes out of its way to keep me from being engaged? There is none. There's absolutely no point. The film is just plain boring. And on top of that, it makes no sense because of the awkward transitions. Like I could give some props to the film if it at least made sense, but the film doesn't even allow me to do that! I know they wanted to make a very different Jungle Book and that is something I have to give respect to. At least they didn't try to copy/paste the Disney version (either one). They did try to make something new, which is nice to see in an industry known for making sequels, remakes, reboots, and adaptations of every property known to man. Next year alone, there's like 5 Marvel movies coming out, another Toy Story, another Men in Black, another Angry Birds (for some reason), another 47 Meters Down (wow they'll make a sequel of anything at this point), another Jumanji (already?), the 50th adaptation of Little Women or something, and I kid you not, 4 live-action Disney remakes. Considering the over-saturation of known properties in the box office, it's nice to see that one of these adaptations is trying to stand out. But while you make the movie different, you also have to make it good. And Serkis failed to do that. Again, part of me is sad that his passion project blew up in face, but maybe some actors shouldn't direct. John Krasinski? Great actor/director. Look forward to see what else he makes. Clint Eastwood? Yeah, he's good at it too (when the movie isn't The 15:17 to Paris). Serkis? If this movie is his standard, not so much.

Finally, the performances are just so, so dull. It's very evident that none of the adult cast cared about giving good voice performances. It honestly feels like all of them were reading the script and and just fell asleep while they were recording. Benedict Cumberbatch's performance as Shere Khan stood out in terms of how boring it was. The fact that I forgot that the tiger was voiced by Sherlock himself MULTIPLE TIMES throughout the movie shows you just how dull it is. I'm not even joking, I legitmately forgot that Khan (LOL, he also played Khan in Star Trek. KHAAAAAAAN!!!) was played by Benedict Cumberbatch. The only adult who seemed have fun recording his dialogue was of course Serkis. Because like I said, this movie was his passion project. Also the kid who plays Mowgli is at least trying to give a good performance. However, he doesn't give one, because he's trying too hard to be edgelord Mowgli, as most of his screen-time is spent with him staring slightly at the ground and giving the tiger a mean glare. But if he's not doing that, he's sobbing and yelling "BAGHEERA!". Okay, that's not all he does. Those are just the only interesting things he does. You know, I just don't really want to talk about this anymore. It's not good. I wanted it to be good, but it was just as disastrous as I thought it would be if not more so.

SCORE: 2/10

I'll give props for the ambitions the filmmakers had while making the film, but it's simply a failed experiment. I guess watch it if you want to? Because it was on Netflix, I didn't feel remorse from watching it. If you do watch it, don't expect much. That would be a mistake.