by Peter Callaghan

“The strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.” So says wolf pack leader Akela (Giancarlo Esposito) to orphan man-cub Mowgli (Neel Sethi) who is forced to flee from his adopted home in the jungle to a distant man-village when a scar-faced tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba) seeks revenge after the young boy’s late father branded him with the fiery glow of “the red flower”.

The story (or rather collection of stories and poems, for there were fourteen in total), as laid down by Rudyard Kipling over a hundred years ago and since immortalised in numerous films, comic strips and stage plays – most notably the 1967 animated comedy which featured the hit songs The Bare Necessities and I Wanna Be Like You, both of which are reprised in wonderful trad-jazz style in director Jon Favreau’s current adaptation – is widely known.

However, if like me you happen to be one of the few people alive who has neither read the original nor watched one of the many spin-offs, fret not. For writer Justin Marks has done an excellent job of infusing the litany of characters and labyrinthine plot with warmth and affection, humour and depth, which as the PG rating suggests appeals to both children and the child within. Though several of the fight sequences push the boundary of “mild threat”, so those with very young or sensitive children beware: hands may squeezed, eyes may be averted and urine may be accidentally spilled!

12-year-old Neel Sethi, as one of only three non-CGI characters (the others being Ritesh Rajan as Mowgli’s father and Kendrick Reyes as a younger Mowgli, both in blink-and-you-miss-them roles), is brilliantly cast and turns in a wonderfully nuanced performance as the man-cub Mowgli who with his big brown eyes in the beginning is the picture of butter wouldn’t melt, when confronted by the perplexing shrugs and gesticulates like a mini-Woody Allen and, to quote from Kipling’s most famous poem If, having met “triumph and disaster” and treated “those two imposters just the same” by the end drops the boy from his title and becomes “a Man, my son!”

Offering stellar support in the voice-over department are Ben Kingsley (Ghandi, Hugo) as the wise panther Bagheera who doubles as the narrator, Idris Elba as the boo-hiss tiger Shere Khan, Scarlett Johansson as the sultry python Kaa, Christopher Walken as the orangutan-like King Louie whose humungous frame emerges from the shadows like an overweight Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now and – in scene-stealing, almost film-stealing, form – Bill Murray as the slothful bear Baloo whose riotous rendition of The Bare Necessities is worth the entrance money alone.

The CGI is nothing short of terrific, with each bird and beast not only frighteningly realistic but also imbued with enough human characteristics to make them more quirky and endearing than, say, real-life creatures in a David Attenborough documentary or forensic recreations in films such as Life of Pi. The same goes for the jungle backdrop of towering trees and crashing mudslides through which Mowgli is pursued by the fearsome Shere Khan. And the score by John Debney, which also features a revised version of I Wanna Be Like You performed with George Melly abandon by Christopher Walken, is toe-tappingly sublime. Go see!

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Peter Callaghan
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