The Jungle Cruise Review
Disney live action films aren’t that successful I hate to say, but it’s true, most of them are quite forgettable, especially in recent years, films like “Artemis Fowl”, “A Wrinkle in Time”, “Stargirl”, “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms”. I bet you reading this blog hasn’t seen all these films, and even if you have, they haven’t been financially successful. The last original live action Disney film they’ve released that was successful was “The Pirates of the Caribbean” and they’ve milked that franchise for all it’s worth, creating 5 films, with a 6th film rumoured and a spin off film possibly in the works. Disney can’t just produce Pirates films, so they stumbled upon remakes, because they know that they already have an audience because people know the stories. So far we’ve had “101 Dalmatians”, “Alice in Wonderland”, “Cinderella”, “The Jungle Book”, “Pete’s Dragon”, “Beauty and the Beast”, “Dumbo”, “Aladdin”, “The Lion King”, “Lady and the Tramp” and “Mulan”, with many more films in the pipeline. They’ve also started making spin-off films like the “Maleficent” films and “Cruella”. These do better because they already have an audience, people know what to expect. However, going back to my original point, live action Disney films that aren’t remakes or spin offs, just aren’t the money grabs that Disney want them to be. The question of this blog, has “The Jungle Cruise” broken the dreaded curse?
I think it’s important to note that “The Jungle Cruise” is already at an advantage because the film is inspired by an already popular ride that can be found at many Disney parks around the world, so it’s already going to have a following. This doesn’t automatically mean it’s going to be successful, just look at the reception of “The Haunted Mansion”, starring Eddie Murphy. Disney practically swept that film under the metaphorical rug.
So the first ingredient for a well loved, and financially successful live action film is to have the plot linked to something the audience already knew. The second ingredient is to have amazing actors. Well, having the current highest paid male actor -Dwayne, the Rock, Johnson, is probably the best you’re gonna get. He’s riding high on the successes of Moana, Jumanji, Fast and Furious, and many more movies. Dwayne has such a large physical presence and he’s such a huge actor it’s sometimes hard to see past that and see the character he’s playing, but Dwayne did it. To explain better what I mean, when I went to see the live action “Beauty and the Beast” film and I heard Le Fou speak, all I could hear was Olaf, I couldn’t get past it, but I don’t hear Maui and I didn’t even think of Maui when I saw Dwayne play Frank Wolff.
Dwayne isn’t the only great cast member, I have to talk about Emily Blunt, who plays Lily Houghton. Emily is in the top 10 paid female actresses, having raked in just under 23 million in the last year, (Dwayne got paid just under 88 million(cough, gender pay gap, cough)). Emily is riding high with successes like “A Devil Wears Prada”, “A Quiet Place”, “Mary Poppins Returns” and more. Emily fully takes on the role of Lily, she portrays a powerful, ahead of her time, feminine, adventurer and I loved to see it.
I did not expect to see Jack Whitehall in this film, but now I’ve seen the film, I’m glad he was in it. Jack isn’t a big shot actor, isn’t overly well known, but I do find him memorable. He has this boyish charm about him that means that you can’t help but like him. He was great comic relief during this film, he brought a different dynamic to the film, and I wouldn’t have enjoyed the film half as much if he wasn’t in it.
So you’ve got your top actors, now you need a good plot, and like I’ve said, this film took inspiration from the Disney ride: The Jungle Cruise. So to summarise, the film focuses on lots of different people wanting to obtain a petal from a tree that will allow you to cure any illness, making this an adventure film. The film is pretty fast paced, it’s long at 2hours and 9 minutes, but there’s action around every turn. There are several impressive action sequences that didn’t feel as though they were a reproduction of what we’ve already seen a hundred times before. If, however, the action doesn’t do it for you, then hopefully the jokes will keep you watching. If you didn’t know, when you go onto the Jungle Cruise ride your skipper tells you awful dad jokes that you just can’t help but laugh out loud because they’re just so bad, and these kinds of jokes are littered throughout the film.
Visually, I think the film is beautiful, it didn’t blow me away, but the sets were well decorated and looked alive and colourful.
The film itself reminded me a lot of The Mummy. In both films there is a man and woman trying to retrieve something from a far off land, which is shrouded in mystery. Frank and Lily are exactly like Rick and Evelyn. Imhotep is also a lot like Prince Joachim, both blokes don’t care much about the people around them, they’re only after one thing, and they’re both bold. However it’s MacGregor’s character that reminded me a lot of Jonathan Carnahan’s character from “The Mummy”. Both don’t really want to be on the expedition, both are very fearful characters, both are used as comical relief and both are integral in propelling the film forward.
So what did I think of the film? Well I enjoyed it, it was a nice way to spend a couple of hours. On reflection, it is quite a dark film, much darker than anything we’ve seen recently. The scenes with the snakes are particularly hard to stomach, however I think there was the right balance between fear and funny. If the stakes weren’t high enough then the film wouldn’t have felt like enough of an adventure film. There are a good amount of twists and turns and not everything is spelled out which I like because it makes for a more interesting film.
So has the film beaten the curse? Well that’s hard to say, let’s look strictly at the numbers, and bare in mind that the COVID-19 virus is still putting a lot of people off going to the theatre. The theatres opening weekend of “The Jungle Cruise” only brought in, just over $34million. If we compare this to “Cruella” which made just over $20 million in the opening weekend, “The Jungle Cruise” comes out on top. However “The Jungle Cruise” was more expensive to make at $200 million, whereas Cruella only cost $100 million. But then we need to add in Disney Plus. Cruella made $27 million on opening weekend, The Jungle Cruise has so far made $30 million. So all together, so far The Jungle Cruise has made roughly $64 million. This is pretty good considering that we are still in a pandemic. However one last figure I’m going to leave you with is this: The live action Aladdin made $113 million over opening weekend.
I guess only time will tell whether “The Jungle Cruise” has broken the dreaded Live Action film curse.
Disney Inside 
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