This is NOT Kipling.

Rating: Null/10 (26 March 2001)

Disney's "The Jungle Book" was an epic dissapointment for me. I love animation and am normally very pleased with the studio's films (I find now that they get about one right per decade). But "The Jungle Book" is a complete contradiction of the original text. I love the voices selected for the characters, no question, and the animation is superb. The introduction perfectly catches the book's feel, with the narrative by Bagheera. The characters are well balanced (although I must declare that I really do find Phil Harris to be funny).. What could possibly go wrong? Well, the story is that Disney instructed the supervisors of this film NOT to read the book while making the film. It shows. The plot is without the complications of the book, the characters make brief appearances (Kaa, Hathi, etc..) and then vanish. Maybe I'm just upset because they left out Ming the Bat. I don't know. They also decided to turn it into a pseudo-jazz musical.. I don't know about that either. I just prefer the book. There's too much sugar in the Disney version, the songs aren't GREAT, and the two human characters are irritating little prigs. I dunno about this movie, maybe I'd have more fun with it if I hadn't read the book. Pinocchio was anything BUT Collodi, but that's a good thing. This is just plain wrong.