I can imagine making a film out of Rudyard Kipling's treasure is very hard work...

Rating: 6/10 (6 September 2007)

Genre: Cartoon, based on Rudyard Kipling's book, jungle.
Main characters: Mowgli (Bruce Reitherman), Bagheera (Sebastian Cabot), Baloo (Phil Harris) and Shere Khan (George Sanders).
What happens: A panther called Bagheera finds a little "mancub" in a basket in a broken boat. Bagheera knows that the baby would perish without any care. He then decides to take the boy to the wolf pack...
My thoughts: For the young, this will be a pleasurable film. They will instantly fall in love with the characters and be excited for them all, watching this film over and over again, maybe enjoying it a little more each time. Then, as they grow older, they may prefer other films and find some parts of this a little "eerie" as I did (of course, some may not pay attention to the weirdly spooky music which appears at times). They may get scared of Shere Khan. Then, they may read the book and realise what a floppy mess of the book this is. They may not like it for a long while afterwards, constantly reading the beautiful book instead. Then, at golden teenager hood, they may slightly go back into this film again, watching it more often than usual, reading the book as well. For the rest, I do not know. All this happened to me and I wouldn't be surprised if it happened to at least one person in the world (for one thing, SOO many people have watched this).
This film is better for you to watch if you're in a VERY good mood. Otherwise, it kind of gives a flop. Luckily for me, I do not find it as spooky as I did for a few years and I like parts. I see Colonel Haiti as a tribute to Rudyard Kipling, as he enjoyed writing books about the army. Mowgli in this is basically a spoilt little young boy, not noble unlike in the books. Baloo will be likely not to impress those who have read the books as he is a bit silly. Although him teaching Mowgli happens in the book and he is a goodie through and through (although in the book Baloo teaches Mowgli the laws of the jungle). Bagheera, as the film starts, is very likable but then his performance fails into about twenty minutes of the film as he starts to become fed up with Mowgli. The wolves are good, although they have a much bigger part in Rudyard Kipling's work and the mother wolf in the book is fiercer than her mate, unlike in this film. Kaa has the character of Tabaqui the jackal's and he is not a nice character (although Sterling Holloway does a good job, I have to admit). Shere Khan is much more evil than in the book and he is more of a "main character". King Louie is pointless really, I do not see why Wolfgang Reitherman had to put in a dancing Orangutang that wanted to make fire. I am very grateful for the Beatles vultures, they CERTAINLY do not appear in the books and they are good in this.
The title of this film is not very good to the book, it would be better being called something like "Adventure of Mowgli" or "Story of Mowgli". In "The Jungle Book" many more characters appear beside our ones here.
Recommended to: People who HAVE NOT read the book (after you've watched the film please read it!), very young children and maybe grown-ups.
6 and a half out of ten.