Disney seems to be looking to make another hit based on one of the famed attractions from one of their theme parks. Ever since the success of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl in 2003. Disney has been on the verge to try and replicate that movie’s success by trying to find another one of their Disneyworld or Disneyland attractions and turn it into a successful feature film. This has to led to movies that range in quality, but most moviegoers can agree that they never came close to capturing what made pirates work in the first place. So the question remains if Jungle Cruise based on the ride of the same name would be the movie to break the norms and deliver on a wonderful adventure unlike any other. Sadly to say while this movie means well, it, unfortunately, didn’t help to convince me that this is a ride worth taking.
In 1916 a strong independent adventure Dr. Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt) is on a mission to save the lives of many in finding a substance that can cure anyone in any condition. She along with her brother MacGregor (Jack Whitehall) head to the jungle to find what they are looking for when they unexpectedly end up on a jungle cruise with Frank (Dwayne Johnson) as their guide. They must hurry and work together to find the substance before Lily’s colleagues can get their themselves and use the substance for their own diabolical needs.
The movie has a whole bunch of tones and ideas that are trying to be pushed together but the film seems to be confused as to what it wants to be. Most of the similarities you can honestly make to the pirate's movies but I often found myself comparing this movie to the Indiana Jones flicks most of the time which is not what I think the original Jungle Cruise ride was really about. It is unfortunate though that the movie doesn’t do much different to set itself apart from the Indiana films as I wished I could have been watching those instead. However, I will give credit that there are some unique ideas the movie presents us with such as man-shaped creatures that are formed by snakes and bees and Frank’s backstory about his life which is admittedly interesting. I will also give credit that despite a dull beginning the movie does get more tolerable as the story goes on. There is even a cliched Liar reveal like-plotline in the beginning which could have been dragged out so long but it’s thankfully cut short. It’s overall not the worst story based on a Disney ride I’ve ever seen, but this is the kind of story that should have been told better or not been told at all.
The characters much like the story are tolerable, but they aren’t gonna leave much of an impact after watching the movie. Lily played by Emily Blunt is every strong woman stereotype ever and there aren’t any quirks that come with it. She is very bland and is not much different from many other strong female stereotypes. I’m all for strong women in movies, but they need to have interesting characteristics that go beyond just being strong and overly confident. Frank played by Dwayne Johnson in all honesty is probably the most interesting character but not by much as he can be annoying a lot of the time. It’s clear that Disney is trying to recapture what Dwayne Johnson did for Moana but where Maui was enjoyably full of himself Frank is full of himself in a boring standard way. The rest of the characters in the movie are very forgettable. I can’t even remember the main antagonist on the top of my mind because he would do anything that a typical antagonist in an Indiana Jones movie would do. These characters make the Jungle Cruise journey kinda painful to sit through, I know Blunt and Johnson are talented actors, but the script let their as well as others’ performances down to being nothing but random forgettable characters on a standard journey.
Well, the story and characters seemed to be quite a drag, but the cinematography much at least be beautiful to look at right? The jungle in most cases is very colorful but after a while, the visuals start to look like an afterthought and the jungle becomes less and less engaging as we spend so much time looking at a jungle setting that becomes stale and like every other jungle setting in a movie. The animals of the jungle are mostly CGI which unfortunately means that they look rather fake after observing them for a while. I understand what they are going for, but it would have served the film better if they blended the CGI with practical effects. The neat ideas such as the man creatures formed by smaller creatures does look very good admitally, but there is not that much visually dazzling to separate this jungle adventure from other jungle adventures
The music was composed by James Newton Howard who is most well known for doing the score for the Fantastic Beasts movies and Raya and the Last Dragon. Needless to say that he brings out all the stuff to create jungle tunes against an orchestrated music score. There are even times when the music score gets very epic such as when we learn about frank’s backstory or the final battle in the temple. The music helps make this movie less derivative to watch and James Newton Howard proves he still has the stuff to make music that is great to listen to.
Jungle Cruise is not an awful movie but it sure is a disappointing one. Disney meant well when making this film a reality but the poor performances and cliched story did not help this movie from becoming a standard adventure flick that you could get from watching any other better movies of the same genre. If you are interested in checking this movie out, I’d say go in with not too many high expectations. I think I would much rather watch an Indiana Jones movie as opposed to this. It’s not the worst live-action Disney movie, but it’s far from a unique and true adventure.
(Final Grade: C-)