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Movie revew: CG actions suppressed humor and emotional touch

Movie revew: CG actions suppressed humor and emotional touch

Posted May. 06, 2016 07:23,   

Updated May. 06, 2016 07:35

한국어
Technically targeting “Avatar” and “Life of Pi” and emotionally “Lion King,” I gave the movie 10.1 for its techniques and 7 for emotional touch on the scale of 10.

I have recently watched “The Jungle Book (To be released on June in Korea)” in 3D at a cinema in LA, California. How it develops the story is nearly the same with the original novel, a fairy tale book and 1967 animation film.

Mowgli (Neel Sethi), a man cub, who was found and raised by a pack of wolves, is threatened by Bengal tiger and an outlaw in the jungle Shere Khan (Idris Elba) that he would be killed if he didn’t leave the jungle. Mowgli’s journey is never easy. He is attacked by Kaa, an enormous Indian python but becomes friend with Baloo (Bill Murray) who rescues him.

The movie was made as a live-action film, not an animation one. Watching it, I was scared by how far the technology of computer graphic could go since I failed to find the boundary between the real world and virtual one. Animal characters of tigers, elephants, leopards, wolves, and other backgrounds such as the jungle and waterfalls were all created by computer graphic design but naturally mixed with a real human being Mowgli as if they were real, too. Everything was seamless. Facial expressions of created animals that were even more real than those of real human made me cry.

It has some drawbacks. It seems that director Jon Favreau, with a state-of-the-art computer graphic technology, wanted to fight a match against “Avarta.” The center of gravity of the movie was at making actions whose strong impression interrupted moments to enjoy sense of humor and emotional touch scattered through the movie. The highlight action parts from the scene where a group of flying monkeys kidnaps Mowgli to the one in which he escapes from the temple of orangutan King Louie (Christopher Walken) hardly gave us time to breathe. To truly appreciate all the techniques, it’s strongly advised to watch it in 3D. Those fathers who were dragged by their kids would never have to suppress a yawn. A local grown-up sitting next to me literally screamed for the entire running time.

Unique friendship between Mowgli and lazy bear Baloo, and dedication toward a baby elephant appeared to be at the center of emotional touch, which didn’t work much as the plot failed to naturally unfold and the emotional detail was not deep enough. The ending was not good enough to make adults cry, either.

Despite the drawbacks, the movie makes adults and kids preoccupied by it. The after-images of the movie lingers the longest.

Advanced but scary technology saved all the staff and the sole human cast Mowgli from actually going into the jungle. It’s hard to believe that the entire scenes were shot at central cities in LA.



임희윤기자 imi@donga.com