‘The Jungle Book 2’

All ages are admitted to this G-rated film, but few over age 9 will admit they want to see it.[G]

By: Bob Brown
   Since the world seems to resemble a jungle more and more these days, how about a little innocent fun in a cartoon jungle to lighten things up? Ironically, this movie is about a boy’s yearning to return to a jungle where the food chain has entirely collapsed into one big anthropomorphic song-and-dance routine.
   Way back when Vietnam was a theater of war, Jungle Book was in the theaters, promoting the Disney small-world-after-all view. Rudyard Kipling’s stories were just so darned cute as a cartoon. Those who enjoyed the original film can now introduce the sequel to their children. All ages are admitted to this G-rated film, but few over the age of 9 will admit they want to see it. Unlike Academy Award-nominated Lilo & Stitch, this Disney offering may engage little ones while their parents disengage.

"Ranjan Ranjan (left) is Mowgli’s new kid brother in The Jungle Book 2. The little ball of energy soon develops big brother’s desire to explore the dark jungle. The colors, the backgrounds and the animation are factory fresh (below).
"The


   When we last saw young Mowgli, he had left his jungle friends and wandered after a girl into the village, where he became humanized, if not civilized. This sequel picks up with his tame village life, enlivened only by his re-enacting his jungle adventures through shadow puppets. Mowgli (voiced by Haley Joel Osment) has a tough time keeping within the village fence. The call of the wild keeps tugging him toward his old lair just across the river.
   There, his adoptive bear-father Baloo (John Goodman) mopes, missing his "Mancub," his junior partner in jungle jive routines. Baloo and the panther Bagheera (Bob Joles) tussle over whether the bear should go back to the village and retrieve Mowgli. With the help of the elephants, Bagheera attempts to thwart Baloo’s plans, but the bear is not to be denied.
   What’s a Disney wilderness without lots of talking, singing and dancing animals, all of whom get along just fine in a cartoon "Peaceable Kingdom"? All, that is, except the spoilsport Shere Kahn (veteran Disney voice actor Tony Jay), the smooth-talking tiger who wants to eat Mowgli for humiliating him. His stalking provides the few scary moments in this otherwise too-tame patch of fluffy flora and fawning fauna. But that’s as it should be for the intended audience, whose grandparents have still not quite gotten over the murder of Bambi’s mother.
   The tunes in this picture are not as inspired as those in other recent Disney fare. I hate to keep making the comparison, but Lilo & Stitch has it all over this jungle in the music department. It feels as if the few numbers in the movie have been pulled out of mothballs from old musical flicks of the 1960s. "The Bare (or is it Bear?) Necessities" is reprised from the original so many times, it’ll stay with you like a piece of undigested pepperoni pizza. The team of Lorraine Feather and Paul Grabowsky are credited with the music and lyrics for these. Feather seems to have only one other credit, the MGM cartoon, All Dogs Christmas Carol.
   Unaccountably, the most talented tunesmith in the film isn’t contributing a note. Veteran rocker Phil Collins, formerly of the band Genesis, is the voice of Lucky the Vulture. He and his fellow vultures hang around cracking jokes at the expense of Shere Kahn, who is giving them nothing to gnaw on. They are like the Greek chorus of crows in Dumbo, a resemblance that I assume is intentional.
   The colors, the backgrounds and the animation are factory fresh — which is to say, not much feels lovingly hand-tooled about it. Sheer artwork like that of the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki (of Oscar nominee Spirited Away) is altogether missing. This Jungle Book is to animation as Velveeta is to cheese. But then, kids do seem to prefer blander, more predictable flavors to the sharpness of real Cheddar.
   Despite these shortcomings, what’s good are the voice characterizations. The late Sterling Holloway, as Kaa the Snake in the original, is irreplaceable, but John Goodman does a serviceable Baloo. In fact, I like him better than Phil Harris’s original. Another pro on the team is long-time voice actor Jim Cummings (mostly as Pooh in Disney’s film series), who plays the lead elephant, Colonel Hathi.
   But even they cannot make up for the fact that this film and its happy-face take on the not-so-wild life has a duller ring than a thump on a hollow log. There are no new lessons for Mowgli to learn, not even any new dance steps. Why do studios fall back on these things? Don’t they know that kids have taste and intelligence? Or at least they could if they weren’t subjected to the likes of tired sequels. If parents thought all cartoon movies were like this, they’d be reluctant to sit through any of them. Come on, Disney, give us more of your grit and pizzazz. Parents are kids too. If you’ve stayed away from Jungle Book 2 based on the previews, you were fairly judging this book by its cover.
Rated G. All ages admitted.