Kipling classic loses jungle touch in remake

Kipling classic loses jungle touch in remake

By Dini S. Djalal

JAKARTA (JP): In Disney's 1995 reworking of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, the film's childlike hero Mowgli puts forward the question: "What is hate?" To which followed much "deep" philosophizing amongst the audience about the so-called civilized world's wicked ways.

All I could think of was: where's all the song and dance gone? What happened to those great tunes Baloo and Mowgli crooned together in the cartoon version? And why is Mowgli no longer a skinny little runt but, instead, has grown into a contender for the Mr. Universe title?

Wild Kingdom

Unlike of most of its fans, who grew up singing Just the Bare Necessities, I discovered The Jungle Book in college, and only in its 1967 animated movie version. But the wide-eyed innocence of Mowgli, the huggable bulk of Baloo the bear, even the slithery charm of Kaa the snake, immediately became like old friends. As in most Disney films, the animals spoke like humans, and behaved more humanly than many of us.

During the planning of the new version, the film's producers decided that the animals speaking like humans would be too easy.

"It was an enormous challenge to write animal scenes without the simplicity with which all the animals in the Jungle Book stories talk to one another," said screenwriter Ronald Yanover. Instead the film crew hired more than 50 trained animals to roll around and act cute in front of the camera. It is as amusing as watching the circus or Wild Kingdom -- if you go for that sort of thing.

Perhaps this is merely the voice of a Kipling-illiterate, with no pets. Producer Raju Patel hopes the film will further the cause of environmentalists, but a Hollywood-trained domesticated bear, able to do the waltz, seems an inappropriate mascot for the Green movement.

Director Stephen Sommers further contends that "We stayed as close to the book as we possibly could." Yet Kipling's colonialist mentality never appealed to me, so I am neither familiar with his jingoistic novel Kim or the collection of short stories which came to be known as The Jungle Book. The many new versions of The Jungle Book, available in dozens of languages, now spotlight the animal characters and sidesteps Kipling's heavy moral preaching.

The film does not. Here the animals are little more than scenery -- the shaggy mutts in formula Hollywood films get more screen time. Instead the film centers upon the bland human characters -- Mowgli, his object of affection Kitty, and her evil suitor Captain Boone -- and the parallels between the savagery of the jungle and civilization.

The story is similar to Tarzan or The Blue Lagoon, except without a half-naked Jane or Brooke Shields. Mowgli, a young Indian boy, and Kitty, the daughter of British military man Major Brydon (stern Sam Neill of Jurassic Park), become friends in colonial India. Their playful childhood is interrupted when, during a riot, Mowgli is carried off into the jungle by a wayward carriage. Hence Mowgli grows up in the jungle, living amongst the animals and behaving as they do. When he and Kitty accidentally meet again, they are both young adults. The difference is that Mowgli can no longer speak her language.

So Kitty, with the help of Dr. Plumford (played with typical wit by John Cleese), re-introduces Mowgli to civilization, and Mowgli relearns the English language quicker than a circus tiger learning to jump through fire hoops. Along the way, the seeds of love between the hunky Mowgli (Jason Scott-Lee from Dragon: the Bruce Lee Story) and the vivacious Kitty (Lena Headley from Remains of the Day) are sown all over the alphabet table, causing great distress to Kitty's father and the persistent Captain Boone (Cary Elwes of The Princess Bride).

Isn't it just like Hollywood to turn a perfectly innocent tale of bear & boy camaraderie into a sizzling menage a trois?

But a love story alone cannot carry a multi-million dollar epic. Suspense! Action! Adventure! That's what brings in big bucks. In Indiana-Jones style, The Jungle Book cast embarks on a treasure hunt involving all sorts of mayhem -- falling down waterfalls, crawling through rat-infested dungeons, wrestling with pythons.

But whereas Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones faced grave danger, with a twitch-in-the-eye trepidation and unfailing humor, Mowgli just flexes his rippling muscles and treads on fearlessly. Jason Scott-Lee is an excellent actor in a hopeless role. We feel sympathy for Mowgli, but not because his big brown eyes grow misty at the thought of a married Kitty. Rather because he has to utter inane dialogue, engage in gratuitous slapstick, and prance half-naked in a loin-cloth throughout the film.

Director Sommers said that he, "took all the animals in the book and gave them human counterparts" in the film. So, Cleese's bumbling Dr. Plumford is Baloo, Neill's Brydon is the pompous elephant, and Elwes' sinister Captain Boone is Kaa the snake. Perhaps this explains why the characters seem like one- dimensional caricatures. As the adventuress Kitty, Headley stands out as a breathless English rose, breaking out of convention. Ultimately she plays a damsel in distress, but she breathes vigor and individuality into her performance.

If one is not familiar with previous versions of The Jungle Book, the film offers great family entertainment. It's got action-adventure, great-looking actors, some funny lines, and lots of cute animals -- like an Indiana Jones film produced by the National Geographic Society. And lest we forget, it's got great moral messages. A) Greed kills, and b) animals are our friends! Sunday Matinees are a great way to indoctrinate preteens into campaigning for the World Wildlife Fund. If the annoyingly loud and sweeping music (written by the same composer of other over-the-top soundtracks, Robocop and Conan the Destroyer) can be muted out, I may even rent The Jungle Book one day on laser disc. Only if the 1967 cartoon version is not available.