Cinemavenger

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The Jungle Book

3D is the biggest ripoff since Pizza Hut started charging for extra cheese.  You'd have an easier time convincing me that Ted "You Have No Legal Right To Stroke Your Salami Or Tickle Your Taco" Cruz isn't crazier than a meth lab mouse than that I should have to pay an extra buck or two for what used to be the regular amount of motherfuckin' cheese on an already overpriced shit show of a pizza even though I ordered the five-free-toppings pie and only want pepperoni on the sonuvabitch.

Pizza Slut.  Fuck you, you fucking fucks!

There are only two legit uses for 3D.  Floating naked chicks into the theater to shove their projectile titties in your face (see: Piranha 3DD) or throwing knives and spears and severed heads at the audience so that your girl gets all scared, grabs your arm and, when you get home, shoves her actual titties in your face (see: Friday the 13th Part III).

So, if you spring for the 3D version of the new, "live action" The Jungle Book you're a bigger sucker than this giant lamprey. 

Live action?  Yeah, if you can call one 12-year-old kid from New York surrounded by nothing but digital effects "live action."  Which you can't.  Unless you're a filthy fucking liar.

This update of the 1967 animated The Jungle Book is brought to you by the Big D.  No, not John Holmes.  Disney.  The house that Walt built got Jon "So Money" Favreau to direct.  You never know what you're going to get with Favreau.  Could be the "Fuck yeah!" Iron Man or the "Aw, fuck." Iron Man 2.  With The Jungle Book, Favreau ends up a lot closer to Cowboys & Aliens than Elf.

Where the 1967 cartoon The Jungle Book was light and fun, this flick is one part unknown child actor (Neel "Before Zod" Sethi) in over his head, two parts photorealistic animal attacks way too scary for any kid not raised by Somali pirates and three parts big-name stars cashing some easy checks for maybe a day's worth of voiceover work each.

Bill "That's The Fact Jack" Murray plays the bear, Baloo, who for some reason is now a con artist.  Murray reunites with Scarlett Johansson for her one, shorter-than-Seth-Green scene as the hypnotic snake, Kaa.  Ben "Hail To The" Kingsley is the black, I mean, African-American panther, Bagheera.  Tony Montana the tiger, Shere Khan, is voiced by Idris Elba "Macaroni."  And Christopher "More Cowbell" Walken takes over for Louis Prima as King Louie who's been supersized from orangutan to Gigantopithecus because bigger always equals better, right?

It definitely ain't the king of the jungle, but at least there aren't any twerking lemurs or hippos saying "'Sup, dog?" in this Jungle Book.

April 17, 2016