Disney's classic best

Rating: 9/10 (28 November 2003)

***SPOILERS***
The combination of cast, roles, and music never worked as well on any Disney film from the classic era as it did, here. The great voices of Disney feature films are all present, and they all define their characters in an unforgettable way.
Sebastian Cabot, Phil Harris, George Sanders, J. Pat O'Malley, Sterling Holloway, and especially Louis Prima make their animated avatars come to brilliant life in this film, well-adapted from Kipling's book. In watching all the Disney animated features, from Snow White to The Emperor's New Groove, it's hard to find another film in which the voice actors gave such life to the characters they were portraying. Even Monsters Inc. doesn't surpass this.
It might sound a little hokey, but the reason that Monsters Inc and Toy Story couldn't surpass this film is because of the songs involved. The scores for the Pixar films were typical Randy Newman crap, with no real personality to be fixed to the characters. In this film, we have three fantastic, character-driven songs: 'Trust In Me' (Sterling Holloway), 'Bear Necessities' (Phil Harris), and 'I Wanna Be Like You' (Louis Prima). These are powerful, driving songs that not only advance the plot, but establish the characters singing them. Even though he didn't have a whole song to himself, George Sanders' booming voice lent a beautiful close to 'That's What Friends are For.'
If the singing is good, the acting is better. I wish Disney had made greater use of the operatic voice of Sebastian Cabot (try him out in his guest appearance on 'The Beverly Hillbillies!'), who is in perfect feline characterization as Bagheera. Phil Harris was a Disney bear in this movie as Baloo, and again in 'Robin Hood' as Little John. The animals are the bulk of this movie; Mowgli could have been any competent child actor, but only Sterling Holloway could have voiced Kah, in that way.
The character who steals the show, though, is Louis Prima as King Louie of the apes. King Louie is an unbridled, over-the-top character who has probably the greatest complexity of any character in the film. He's ambitious, sneaky, but also simple, and the audience gets the feeling that he's mainly dangerous because he just doesn't think.
I love the old Disney animated films (up to 'Lion King', but not after), and I believe that 'The Jungle Book' is the absolute best of the bunch. This is a great place to start your Disney collection.