The Jungle Book

Director Jon Favreau conjures up a magical place to get lost in. And thats just one of the dazzling delights in The Jungle Book, a visual marvel that cuts a direct path to the heart. Favreau, the director of films as diverse as Elf, Iron Man and Chef, has managed to blend whats best in the jungle stories of Rudyard Kipling and the 1967 animated Disney version into something unique and unforgettable. See it in reach-out-and-touch 3D if you can, and prepare to be wowed.

Ready-for-anything newcomer Neel Sethi the only human in a cast of talking computer-generated animals, plays Mowgli, a 10-year-old man-cub. After the murder of his father, Mowgli is found in the jungle of India by the panther Bagheera (voiced by Ben Kingsley) and left in the care of wolf parents, Raksha (Lupita Nyongo) and Akela (Giancarlo Esposito). A water shortage has persuaded different species of animals to come together in peace and sharing. The truce is disrupted by the hostile Shere Khan, a Bengal tiger growled by Idris Elba in a voice guaranteed to induce fear and trembling. Blinded in one eye by fire, the red flower that the tiger blames on man, Shere Khan demands that the wolfpack turn over Mowgli to him for certain death. After a tearful farewell to his mother (Nyongo speaks the role with touching gravity), Mowgli with Bagheera keeping a watchful eye sets out to connect with a tribe of humans hes never known.

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Scary, yes, but also thrilling. Thats because Favreau, screenwriter Justin Marks, cinematographer Bill Pope (The Matrix) and a miraculous special-effects team have made everything so vivid and vibrantly alive. Image and sound design reach new heights as Mowgli moves into the darkness. The mouth movements of the creatures, from ape to turtle, are appealingly natural in the manner of the talking pig in Babe. Be on the lookout for Kaa, a giant python so seductively hissed by Scarlett Johansson that it takes a while to realize shes just warming up Mowgli up for the kill.

Just when we get hungry for laughs, theres Baloo, a lazy hustler of a bear given voice by the incomparable Bill Murray. Baloo helps restore the good-natured, hibernating, honey-slurping, fat-slob sauciness to a mammal that took a hit for turning Leonardo DiCaprio into a chew toy in The Revenant. Murray is pricelessly funny, especially dueting with Mowgli on The Bare Necessities, the Oscar-nominated ditty from the Disney cartoon. We also get a song from Christopher Walken who croons I Wanna Be Like You to Mowgli in the role of King Louie, a gigantopithecuswho rivals Kongs role as king of the jungle. No one combines mirth and menace like Walken, whose looks begin to fuse with Louies to uncanny effect.

The Jungle Book weaves its way to a happy ending without getting dragged down in the mire of silliness and soppy sentiment. Favreau earns giggles and sniffles through the warm humor he brings to the story. The natural bounce in Sethis performance is echoed in the film. Theres nothing cynical about Favreaus approach to the material. You get the feeling that hes having as much fun as we are. Working far from the jungle in a building in downtown Los Angeles, Favreau and his VFX team have built a fantasy world to rival James Camerons in Avatar and Ang Lees in Life of Pi. Favreaus Jungle Book fills us with something rare in movies today a sense of wonder.