One Paragraph Movie Review: The Jungle Book

Two hundred and eightieth film: 1967’s The Jungle Book, in which Disney makes Rudyard Kipling twee. It’s a source of regular irritation to many of my friends that Disney movies mostly leave me cold. It’s not even a bit that I just continue for shock value, although the faces when I tell people I haven’t seen The Lion King are fun. It’s just that Disney movies take how I feel about melodrama and musicals (usually referred to as just “musicals”) and then add cute, a precarious ingredient at the best of times. Anyway, a kid raised by wolves has to leave the jungle with the help of a panther and a bear so that a tiger doesn’t kill him, because of course wolves and panthers and bears have small children’s best interests at heart. Look, the human movement animation is impressive and there’s a couple of good songs? One and a half upsettingly coquettish village girls out of five.