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The Jungle Book 2 Movie Review

The Jungle Book 2 is a 2003 direct-to-video animated film from Disneytoon Studios. It’s a very pale imitation of the classic original.

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“In case you haven’t noticed, kid,

I’m no wild animal. Except at parties“

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Similar to the 101 Dalmatians sequel, The Jungle Book 2 also tries to do its own thing a bit, but ultimately becomes an utter rehash, though in this case an even worse one. My main gripe with this movie is that it ended up trying to bring back the magic of the original, a film that I simply adore, but in such an imitative, poor manner. Okay, they wanted to do a similar story again, but every plot beat is fueled with a stupid thing or two that really hurt it overall.

Case in point, Shere Khan. He was a fine, menacing presence at first as expected, but how they disposed of him at the end was just horrible. It was bad, unimaginative and implausible, not to mention incredibly anti-climactic. The entire third act is a mess that I did not like at all.

The first act is probably the best and most interesting one, the one where they rehashed the least of the original. The movie really put forward the idea of Mowgli struggling in the man village, but also nothing is the same for him in the jungle either. He’s the best developed character of the bunch this time around, and it’s a shame that most of his journey ended up being sidetracked in the second half of this movie.

Bagheera and Baloo are as great as they always are, though much less utilized this time. Still, I loved their dynamic with Mowgli and between each other. Others such as Kaa, Colonel Hathi and King Louie only get fleeting moments that barely register as cameos. As for Shanti, she’s okay, but overall far from truly memorable or interesting.

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The Jungle Book 2 has good animation. I liked it, but I found it too modern, thus not fitting in with the style of the first film. The pacing is okay as the film flies by and sometimes it’s quite fun in some very charming scenes, but too many dumb scenes hurt it in the long run. The soundtrack is very mediocre unfortunately, though Jungle Rhythm is actually a pretty solid little musical number in and of itself.

The Jungle Book 2 is a weak sequel. It has its moments, the first act is quite solid and some characters got solid treatment, but others only got cameos, the movie’s soundtrack is mediocre and the third act is both dumb and frustratingly anti-climactic.