Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle

Walt Disney did not create The Jungle Book. That was the work of Rudyard Kipling, the British author, but just about every adaptation has followed the 1967 Disney version that throws aside every element of the anthology book and centered solely on Mowgli, the orphaned man-cub raised by wolves in the Indian forests. Now the self-proclaimed monarch of motion capture, Andy Serkis, has directed his own version: Yet rather than merely mimic '67 again, his adaptation is a pointed and bloody reaction to the cartoon. which is both its defining trait, and ultimately its downfall. The end result is oddly ghoulish, and the sometimes ugly visuals let a stellar voice cast down. In trying so hard to escape Disney, Serkis just fell deeper in his shadow.