Christopher Walken

The Jungle Book

Director: Jon Favreau (2016)

I’m the world’s foremost fan of Disney’s 1967 animated classic, so I had my claws out ready to savage this glossy remake.

But I was disarmed from my first footstep into this spectacular jungle, a terrifically realised mix of live action and state of the art CGI.

The astonishingly lifelike landscape are computer generated by the team who made sci-fi epic Avatar (2009). The animals are from The Lord Of The Rings (2001) WETA Workshop.

Next year’s Visual FX Oscar must surely be in the bag.

This warm hearted, fleet footed, big budget beast is a hybrid spliced from Rudyard Kipling’s novels, Uncle Walt’s original film and his company’s latter day smash The Lion King (1994).

It’s an exciting, funny and touching adventure, though perhaps too scary for the very little ones. Likeable characters are killed, though we never see the blood.

A confident and charming Neel Sethi plays resourceful man cub Mowgli, the only actor on screen.

Mowgli bravely chooses to leave his home and save his family from Shere Khan the tiger.

Idris Elba is tremendous as the clever and vicious villain. He’s blind in one eye and myopic in his pursuit of his prey.

Mowgli sets off to the man village accompanied by Bagheera the panther and Baloo the Bear.

Respectively played by Ben Kingsley and Bill Murray, the pair are enjoyably wise, brave and comic.

En route they encounter angry elephants, seductive snakes, stinging bees and aggressive monkeys.

As a representative of a now endangered species, from a 21st century perspective Shere Kahn almost qualifies as the good guy.

He’s a prophet of doom whose violent fate proves the accuracy of his apocalyptic predictions concerning the dangers to the jungle from the unfettered technology of man.

The script can’t bring itself to embrace the scar faced usurper despite being more far-seeing and independent minded to the allegiance pledging wolf pack. To a British ear the wolves behaviour is eerily fascistic.

Apocalypse is hinted at again in the Brando-esque introduction of the enormous King Louie, not an Orang utan but an outsized outspan Gigantopithecus. He commands an army from the ruins of a long dead civilisation.

Christopher Walken is an inspired and deranged casting choice and delivers a performance to match.

Scarlett Johansson and Lupita Nyong’o have small roles with the former’s husk put to effective use.

When Mowgli learns of the death of a loved one, he decides to return and confront his mortal enemy.

The soundtrack includes the fabulous songs The Bare Necessities and I Wan’na Be like You.

So follow the jungle drums down to the cinema for a swinging good time.

★★★★☆

 

 

 

 

 

Eddie The Eagle

Director: Dexter Fletcher (2016)

This slushy sports biopic of an amateur ski jumper chasing his Olympic dream fails to fly.

The sentimental tone is light but the humour lands as heavily as its hero, but with far less frequency and grace.

A gurning Taron Egerton captures the spirit of of Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards in all his gormless glory.

He’s a teetotal, socially awkward, bespectacled sporter of alarming knit wear. The possessor of a chin the late Jimmy Hill would be proud of.

After Eddie suffered a childhood illness, doctors told him he shouldn’t play sport.

So with an Alp sized chip on his shoulder, this otherwise very ordinary bloke is driven to become an Olympian to prove them wrong.

He’s not fussy about at which sport he fails at so plumbs for the ski-jump.

With no other British competitor in the field it gives him the best chance of qualifying for the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics.

In a less than olympic effort from the IOC, also on the same bill were the Jamaican bobsled team who inspired the film Cool Runnings (1993).

It was watching that film which inspired producer Matthew Vaughn to tackle this project. Egerton also starred and more successfully in Vaughn’s sexist spy caper Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015).

The obstacles littering Eddie’s way are a lack of finance, ability and parental support.

Plus he must face down mockery from fellow competitors and institutional bullying from Tim McInnerny’s snooty British Olympocrat.

The story turns into an odd couple comedy when he teams up with a fictional coach called Bronson Peary.

Aussie charmer Hugh Jackman plays disgraced former ski star turned cynical alcoholic.

Eddie’s no chicken and lacks a fear of heights. Headless on the slopes, he’s too dim to be wary of the potential lethal nature of the sport.

Adding to this lack of heroism is the knowledge he can’t win, so there’s nothing at stake and no drama.

Actor turned director Dexter Fletcher made the feel good musical Sunshine On Leith (2014) but can’t make this material lift off.

He does a great job of conveying the awe inducing spectacle of the slopes but it’s downhill in all other aspects.

When even the presence of reliable old stager Jim Broadbent can’t raise a smile, your film really is in trouble.

Christopher Walken wanders in very late in the games as ski guru Warren Sharp and looks as comfortable in his surroundings as Eddie does on the slopes.

Dialogue stresses Eddie’s reservations about appearing in the media spotlight. This is at odds with the real life footage shown at the film’s end of Eddie taking a very public bow at the closing ceremony.

And Edwards hasn’t been slow to exploit the media invented nickname of ‘Eddie the Eagle’. His real name is Michael.

Which in presenting this under achieving and over eager self publicist as a plucky underdog, this film duly takes.

★★☆☆☆