The Jungle Book 2: Blu-ray Review
The Movie:
Mowgli has been living in the man-village with his little stepbrother Ranjan and his best friend Shanti. But the man-cub still has that jungle rhythm in his heart, and he misses his old buddies Baloo and Bagheera. When Mowgli wanders back to the wild for some swingin’ fun, he soon finds the man-eating tiger Shere Khan is lurking in the shadows and planning his revenge.
There was a time in the late 90’s and early 2000’s that Disney made sequels to some of their beloved titles. Some were unnecessary but this was one of the ones that made the cut for me. I loved the original Jungle Book and remember watching it over and over as a kid but there was always one question that I had after the movie ended: What went on after Mowgli left his jungle friends? The cool thing about this movie us that it picks up about five days after the original (even though it took 36 years for this to come out). Obviously since this came out in 2003 the animation style of the film is a lot cleaner and sleeker than the original which I thought would take away from the feel of it but it in fact looks pretty great. With the setting being in the jungle, this blu-ray release has made all of the various colors so vibrant and beautiful. The river water looks to be enhanced from its original release so much that it looks like actual water. That was the only thing that I wasn’t particularly keen on for the fact that having digital water in a traditional 2D animated film makes it look a bit strange. For this being released on blu-ray for the first time you definitely won’t be disappointed in the transfer of the film. Goodman and Jay are really good as Baloo and Shere Khan. They do a great job at following up the works of Phil Harris and George Sanders. They don’t sound exactly like them but they were able to embody the exact same feel of the characters which really goes a long way. The film doesn’t have too much of an actual story besides it being somewhat similar to the original but my son loves it right now and in the end that’s the audience that this is for. It’s enough to make an adult smile and feel reminiscent as well as having your kids laugh, get up and sing along to the songs. Pick this up before they lock it up in the vault again!
Special Features:
Deleted Scenes – A few scenes that were excluded including a musical number that we get a chance to see that was storyboarded.
Sing-Along Songs – This feature allows you to play the film and as the musical numbers come up they are subtitled to allow you to follow along.
Music Videos – Musical numbers from the film (W-I-L-D and Jungle Rhythm) that look to be cut to be made in to videos.
Backstage Disney – This feature gives us a brief recap of the original Jungle Book as well as a retrospective on the films with interviews with some of the cast and crew.
