Heresy!

Rating: Null/10 (23 September 2011)

I'm not a big fan of Disney's The Jungle Book.
There. I've said it.
I know it was the last movie to reach the screen which had been developed under Walt's personal supervision, but there is quite a lot of it I don't like. I suppose I had better be specific.
I never liked the "scratchy" character and animation design which came in with 101 Dalmations.
Jungle Book was the first movie which featured big name voice talent and, more than subsequent films, the voice talent threatened to become more important than the characters they were portraying.
Mowgli - horrible. Sorry.
The dreadful not-quite-Liverpool accents of the vultures. Did you learn nothing from Mairy Poppuns? I can see what you're going for, but get people who can do an authentic Liverpool accent! Backgrounds - sketchy. Could have done with more detail, greater depth, greater use of multi-plane (in fact the design generally is horrible in this film).
Story - inconsequential.
Elephants - awful. No plot relevance, mawkish, not funny.
The songs - now, I'll give you the songs! In fact, the songs are so good they almost make up or the rest of it.
But not quite.