Earlier this year, director Jon Favreau unveiled his modern remake of Disney’s The Jungle Book, and it quickly became one of 2016’s biggest smash hits. Ahead of its release on Blu-ray and DVD, Favreau’s take on The Jungle Book is also apparently one of the rare films that is Honest Trailers-proof!
This week’s installment of Honest Trailers gamely tries to find ways to mock The Jungle Book, but even the Awesome Voice Guy has to admit that this is a “well-written, visually stunning, action-packed movie with great characters” before noting that it has a huge advantage over Disney’s first animated Jungle Book: This one has a plot. Even the final showdown between Mowgli and Shere Khan raises some uncomfortable questions about whether the killer tiger was right about the mancub all along.
How does the HT team deal with the lack of easy-to-mock targets? Essentially, by making the film sound dirtier than it actually is. For example: “Journey deep inside a downtown Los Angeles blue screen studio where a grown man spent months playing with a little boy in his underwear.” But even that funny line of cynicism gave way to a sense of awe about what Favreau and the special effects team were able to achieve together.
The only vulnerability that the video effectively used against the film was the fact that neither Neel Sethi nor Bill Murray are particularly great singers, which is especially noticeable during Mowgli and Baloo’s cover of “The Bare Necessities.” But it’s a relatively minor complaint for a movie that’s likely to be remembered as one of Disney’s best for many years to come.
What did you think about The Jungle Book‘s Honest Trailer? Unleash the Bare Necessities in the comment section below!
Image: Disney
