Mowghli enters scary old temple and meets giant terrifying evil ape... which suddenly starts singing catchy song. This scene would have worked perfectly if it held on to the dark tone it began with. The song killed it. Bare necessities fit well into the movie, this one does not.
shareChristopher Walken never would have played the part if there was no song for him.
shareSo? Get someone else who can use a New York gangster accent. The song obliterated the tone. I could never recover the mood afterward.
Kaa was also severely underutilized to the point of pointless cameo territory.
Not only do we have no idea how she even knew about Mowgli, since we're given no information about her character at all, but all of that information could have been provided by Bageerah or Shere Khan at any point in the film, since they were the only two characters besides Mowgli shown to be present when it all happened.
Had she perhaps, hmmm... explained that she was awakening his memory of it all? Maybe it would have worked? But then we'd have to see it happening from his POV as a baby to get that point across.
Even then, turning Kaa into nothing more than a pointless info-dump wastes the character even more than his/her being merely a secondary antagonist as he was in 1967... and yet became one of the most iconic and best-recalled characters from that film!
I did like the use of the elephants. Their non-speaking role was actually one of the strongest parts of the movie and a perfect example of how showing, not telling, can be highly effective.
Some parts were an improvement over the much lighter cartoon version; but in others, the story telling was rather weak.
Not even it fit. It showed him more as crazy.
shareI thought both the songs in the film were unnecessary and unnecessarily distracting.
sharewhy do you hate fun?
shareWhy does the movie hate fun? The songs were out of place and merely thrown in to refer to the cartoon, while both versions of the songs were terrible.
The whole movie was built on being darker and scarier, fight scenes, chase scenes, CGI action scenes. Lame.
I don't agree that the original song was terrible! Louis Prima!! but, of course, that's my tastes... otherwise, yes, the two songs in this were clearly wedged in to appeal to the old people who remember the old Disney version of the book. my two kids were totally confused and even asked me during the film if this was a musical. the songs didn't fit the rhythm and overall tone of the film at all. I can't imagine how anyone would think they were great. (and the whole reference to Brando in Apocalypse Now was another bone thrown to old people in the audience... these "in-jokes" where they filmmakers wink at the audience are often distracting from any potential seriousness going on in the story. sigh)
shareAnother in joke would be the cowbell/Christopher Walken connection (You can never have enough cowbell)
shareExactly, they felt as awkward as the dwarves singing in "The Hobbit".
If a movie isn't a musical, or at the least a comedy, the plot shouldn't ever come to a screeching halt to throw in a musical number.
wrong. The song was great.
shareI loved the song.. Also, if you think about it.. He was more scary because he was trying to be a friend... Those are the ones you really have to watch out for, the ones that are wolves in sheeps clothing.
I doubt women will ever be as entertaining as my $200 laptop.
It fit well into the cartoon where King Louie's whole character was a silly fool. In this movie where he was a giant menacing ape who tries to kill Mowgli not long after it was just out of place, especially when it was stunted and hesitant - aka the way Walken sings.
shareKing Louie: You're a man, aren't you?
Mowgli: Yeah...
King Louie: That's what makes you a man. You can call the Red Flower, and control it.
Mowgli: They told me not to go near the Red Flower.
King Louie: You know why they tell you that? Because once you have it, you rise to the top of the food chain, brother. Nothing in all of the Jungle can stand up to the Red Flower.
Mowgli: Please, I don't know anything about it. I just wanna go.
King Louie: Go? Go where, Man-cub? Where will you go? Did you know, there was once only a single pawpaw tree? In the whole Jungle? We were just dirt people then, the Bander-log. Log dwellers on four legs. Till one monkey-didn't have a name-he had a notion to look up. Saw more fruit up there than he seen his entire life. Then he looked at his feet. Saw he didn't have feet, he had hands. Four hands. So he climbed, something no one had ever done before in the history of the Jungle. He...evolved. That fruit. Must have tasted delicious. May have been the sweetest thing that monkey ever put in his mouth. So he spread that seed. So more pawpaw trees would grow. And more Bander-log would rise up, flying high. A great people who reach and rise to the top. There's just one thing we need to reach our full potential. Bring me that Red Flower and we will rule this Jungle. I will protect you and you will want for nothing ever again.
Mowgli: I can't.
King Louie: You can't or you won't?
Mowgli: I can't.
King Louie: You WILL!