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Jungle Book 2: Special Edition (The)
R1 - America - Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (29th June 2008). |
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The Film
 Sometimes a sequel needs time to cook, a little bit of time to not look too rushed, but keep with the popularity. One of Disney’s latest sequels “The Jungle Book 2” (2003) turns out to be a bit overdone in the 36 years since the release of the original “The Jungle Book” in 1967. The story picks up a short while after the first left off, with Mowgli (Haley Joel Osment) living and trying to adjust to living life in the Indian village that he followed Shanti (Mae Whitman) to after leaving the jungle. However even though John Rhys-Davies’ character has adopted him, who is oddly credited only as Rahjan’s Father, he feels a strong urge to return to the jungle. Baloo (John Goodman) misses Mowgli and resolves to visit him, but unfortunately Shere Kahn (Tony Jay) is back and looking to get revenge. Style-wise, it’s a Disney movie through and through, but lacks much of the magic that would be required by Disney animation. I have my reservations about the original "Jungle Book", but I admire the animation, something Disney made its name off of. Unfortunately, “The Jungle Book 2” falls in to the too common Disney trap in its poorly blended computer generated elements that sometimes pop out from the background, such as the 3-D rendered water when the 2-D animated Baloo emerges from the river that draw me out of the movie and feel unnecessary. The animation has a direct-to-video quality and doesn’t show off much except how little effort Disney decided to throw behind this 36 year after the fact sequel. In terms of the voice acting, Osment and Goodman are fine, but for those kids who have incessantly watched the original “The Jungle Book” the voices will feel disjointed, almost like one of the Disney direct-to-DVD sequels, only “The Jungle Book 2” features some actual big stars. Goodman and Osment do a good enough job with their singing and speaking, but something just feels off about their voices. There’s also a pretty presumptuous guest appearance by Phil Collins as lucky the buzzard, the fifth buzzard who hangs around with the four original buzzards that are supposed to be The Beatles. Collins’ message is very subtle. A big aspect of the movie is the songs, which really aren’t very apparent or memorable, there’s some callback songs like 'Bare Neccessities', but the newer songs aren’t very catchy. There’s a noticeable absence of King Louie in the movie due to a lawsuit between Disney and the estate of the original voice actor, Louis Prima. Smash Mouth does make an appearance though singing a cover of 'I Want to be Like You' during the credits, but no original songs within the movie are worth buying. Of course the happy ending comes and the plot’s predictable, but I expect that with a Disney sequel. What could have been done was to add something more to the characters or make it a little more engaging for the audience looking back on the original “The Jungle Book” with nostalgia. Director Steve Trenbirth and writer Karl Geurs don’t really deliver, with a really base story that will be enough to entertain children who love Disney movies and Disney animation, but don’t expect it to have any lasting value.
Video
Presented at an anamorphic 1.66:1 widescreen aspect ratio, the video quality is fine, there’s no noticeable problems in the actual frames themselves. I already talked about my issue with the poor CG and traditional animation blending, they could have used both if they had made them work better together, but to me it just sticks out like a sore thumb and frustrates me.
Audio
“The Jungle Book 2” has a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound track in either English, French or Spanish. The track sounds good, the music plays at the right levels and the dialogue sounds fine as well. The sounds within the movie work out well, the voice acting is well done for what it is, but it doesn’t match very well with the music from the first "Jungle Book", and as I said earlier, the songs aren’t too memorable. Optional English, French and Spanish subtitles are available.
Extras
Disney has equipped this single disc set with some deleted scenes, music videos, interactive games, some featurettes and bonus trailers. Below is a closer look. First up, the deleted scenes are for two songs that weren’t used in the movie, shown in rough animatic sketches using temporary vocals and feature introductions by Studio executive Sharon Morrill and Disney Senior Vice President for Music Matt Walker, executive and senior vice presidents for music at Disney. The scenes are: - “I Got You Beat” runs for 5 minutes and 40 seconds and is a rivalry song between Mowgli and Shanti, where Shanti talks about how great city life is. The interview with Morrill and Walker is a little alarming as the song was originally supposed to show Shanti’s character as an equal to Mowgli, but they decided it would be better for her to be more timid and passive. Thus they cut the song and changed the character. - “Braver” runs for 3 minutes and 44 seconds, this song is a solo by Shanti about being braver, and facing her fear of the jungle that they created after the aforementioned character change, but was cut because Walker and Morrill feel that it gave too much away about Shanti. Next is Disney’s song selection feature, a collection of scenes from the movie presented with optional on-screen lyrics for the audience to sing along with (except for on the final 3 tracks): - “Jungle Rhythm” runs for 3 minutes and 4 seconds. - “Bare Necessities (Baloo Solo)” runs for 44 seconds. - “Colonel Hathi’s March” runs for 46 seconds. - “Bare Necessities (Baloo & Mowgli)” runs for 1 minute and 51 seconds. - “W-I-L-D” runs for 2 minutes and 42 seconds. - “Jungle Rhythm (Mowgli Solo” runs for 1 minute and 40 seconds. - “Bare Necessities (Baloo, Mowgli & Shanti)” runs for 42 seconds. - “I Wanna Be Like You (Smash Mouth)” runs for 2 minutes and 23. - “Right Where I Belong” runs for 2 minutes and 17 seconds. - “Jungle Rhythm (Reprise)” runs for 2 minutes and 5 seconds. There’s same sing with the movie option basically does the same as the above, turning on captions for sing-a-long purposes for the full feature length of the movie. Next are three music videos for two of the original songs in the movie and the Smash Mouth cover from the credits. All are shortened versions presented in a full-frame 1.33:1 format that has been letterboxed, rather than a true widescreen: - “W-I-L-D” runs for 1 minute and 2 seconds. - “Jungle Rhythm” runs for 1 minute and 2 seconds. - ‘“I Wanna Be Like You’ Performed by Smash Mouth” runs for 1 minute and 2 seconds. There are also two interactive games, played with the DVD remote control. The animation is ripped from the movie and looks almost creepy. Runtimes reflect a perfect playthrough of the interactive game: - “Mowgli’s Story Time Adventure” will run for about 6 minutes and 49 seconds. - “Mowgli’s Jungle Ruins Maze” will run for about 6 minutes. Then there is the “Synopsis of the Original Movie ‘The Jungle Book’” featurette that runs for 2 minutes and 59 seconds. Clips of the original movie with a narration to summarize the entire story. Finally there is “The Legacy of ‘The Jungle Book’” featurette which runs for 14 minutes and 11 seconds. A discussion with Disney corporate Disney presidents, producers, animators, and voice actors about what the legacy of the original and what they did with the sequel, there’s some interesting points, but where the animators talk about the depth and 3-D capabilities, I keep wishing they would have stayed true to the original animation style. Of course there are also some bonus trailers for: - “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody: Lip Synchin’ in the Rain” runs for 56 seconds. - “Disney’s The Secret of the Magic Gourd” runs for 2 minutes and 12 seconds. - “The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning” runs for 1 minute and 3 seconds. - “Phineas and Ferb” runs for 32 seconds. - “TinkerBell” runs for 1 minute and 38 seconds. - “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas” runs for 1 minute and 59 seconds. - “101 Dalmations II: Patch’s London Adventure” runs for 1 minute and 28 seconds. - “Sleeping Beauty” runs for 1 minute and 57 seconds. - “The Sword in the Stone: 45th Anniversary Edition” runs for 55 seconds. - “Wall∙E” runs for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. - “Disney Movie Rewards” spot which runs for 20 seconds. - “Disney DVD” spot which runs for 52 seconds.
Overall
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