THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK: Mowgli and Baloo 1997
A film review by Timothy Voon
Copyright 1998 Timothy Voon
1 :-) for Mowgli and Baloo
Directed by Duncan McLachlan Cast Jamie Williams, Bill Campbell, Roddy McDowall, David Paul Francis, Gulshan Grover, Dyrk Ashton Written by Matthew Horton, Bayard Johnson, based on novel by Rudyard Kipling
I was surprised to discover that there was such a thing as a SECOND JUNGLE BOOK. This is followed by a curious question – what makes it different from the first? Not much. We have Mowgli the wolf boy, Baloo the Bear, Baheera the Panther, Shere Kahn the Tiger and Kaa the snake. All present in the 1967 Disney version, except they don't speak or perform cabaret in this version. This movie is primarily geared towards children, and in many ways it works judging from the reaction of the talented young audience (imitating chimpanzee sounds). Children are fascinated by animals and watching a child wander through the jungle, without fear of the wild is reminiscent of the Garden of Eden in it's hey day. My only morbid concern is of kids after watching this movie, sneaking into a bear cage only to be eaten by the bear. Don't laugh, it's happened before.
An amusing opening scene is of Mowgli (a very talented Jamie Williams), being chased through the trees by two ugly chimpanzees with bad cases of haemorrhoids. The scene ends with two chimpanzees on one side and Mowgli with bear, panther and wolves backing him on the other. We know whose going to win that fight! There is another amusing scene where Shere Kahn the Tiger is attacking a camp of hunters. The men scatter up trees to hide. The scene ends with the 7 year-old boy waving a fire stick at the beast, before the frightened tiger runs away chased by a growling kid!
There are also numerous support roles for adults. Bill Campbell (THE ROCKETEER) as the hunter looking for the boy, Roddy McDowall as the mad King Murphy of the Lost City of Apes. However, this movie belongs to Mowgli and the animals.
Great entertainment for the kids, especially if you don't want to take them to The Zoo for Easter.
Timothy Voon e-mail: stirling@netlink.com.au Movie Archives http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Tim+Voon Hugues Bouclier's Movies in Melbourne http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~bouclier/week/movies.html
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews