Of the films based on theme park attractions that Disney have made over the past few years, the only one that’s really worked was the first Pirates of the Caribbean film. I do think you can make a good film out of anything but Disney has not had the best track record in this area. I did have hope that Jungle Cruise would break the trend, but unfortunately I found this to be a disappointment.
Taking place during World War 1, the film follows Dr Lily Houghton who travels to the Amazon rainforest with her brother MacGregor to find the Tears of the Moon, a mythical tree, the petals of which are said to break any curse and cure any illness. In order to get up the river to find it, Lily hires Frank Wolff, who makes his living offering cruises to tourists, who shows himself to be more of a con artist who has his own reasons for going to find the tree. Along the way the trio come into conflict with Prince Joaquim, the son of Kaiser Wilhelm II who wants the tree to advance the German efforts during the war and cursed Conquistadors, led by Don Aguirre (as in the one Aguirre: The Wrath of God was inspired by) who want to break a curse imposed on them. Now in terms of the general tone of the film, this is pretty much the Stephen Sommers version of The Mummy with Lily in the Evelyn and Frank in the Rick roles respectively. Now there’s nothing wrong with that on paper as The Mummy is an incredibly entertaining film, but this film doesn’t really do anything to make itself unique. There could have been some interesting elements raised with it being set during World War 1, but once the characters get to the Amazon this element just falls away. The pacing as well is pretty mixed. It has a decent enough pace for most of the film but in the third act there’s an exposition dump that causes the film to stop dead in its tracks. There is still some decent enough charm in the film and there is an earnestness in how it’s presented, but it doesn’t 100% work. I also think some of the jokes could have flown over my head since I’ve never actually been on the Jungle Cruise ride, especially the jokes early on in the film.
The performances meanwhile are a bit mixed. Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt are charismatic performances on their own, but I don’t think their chemistry here is that great. Comparing it to the chemistry Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz had in The Mummy, there is something missing between Johnson and Blunt that Fraser and Weisz has, it’s hard to explain but I never really believed that they gelled together. Individually, they give decent enough performances and add to the charm the film has, but together it doesn’t work the way it should do. For the other cast, Jack Whitehall is fine here, but his character being gay was clearly written in such a way that it could easily be edited out and it also feels that a lot of his scenes were reshot. There’s some fun to be had with Jesse Plemons and Paul Giamatti hamming it up, but they are severely underutilised, Edgar Ramirez is fine but doesn’t get enough to do as Aguirre and Veronica Falcón is decent as Trader Sam, but again does get much to do.
The technical elements of the film are also a mixed bag. The costume design and production design is pretty solid and I think the design of the boat the characters use has a character of its own. However, the CG in the film was really distracting to me and was overutilised. There are some moments of good CG, mainly for the water effects, but the animal effects are pretty rough. The action scenes to me felt a bit flat as well, there’s nothing particularly wrong with them, but I don’t think I’ll remember them anytime soon.
Overall, Jungle Cruise is a mixed bag of a film. When the film is good then it’s a charming throwback to the classic adventure films, but more often than not it feels baggy and I ended up being pretty bored watching it. I wanted to like this more than I did, but ultimately it is okay at best.
My Rating: 2.5/5
Coogs Reviews 