Review: 'Jungle Cruise' is made from spare parts of better movies but kids will love it

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“Jungle Cruise” is made up of spare parts from better movies and at over two-hours in length, it’ll be tough on short attention spans. On the plus side, it is way better than “Haunted Mansion” and “Tomorrowland,” other Disney rides that morphed into movies. It’s all just an excuse for director Jaume Collet-Serra, who pitted Blake Lively against an angry shark in “The Shallows,” to lead Wolff and Houghton through a series of rousing perils. Houghton's brother doesn’t do much, though his coming-out to Frank would have raised eyebrows a century ago.

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Still, MacGregor’s blip of a backstory isn’t the only instance in which this early 20th century epic nods to a decidedly 21st century audience. As my Times colleague Todd Martens recently examined in a thoughtful, deeply reported piece, the Jungle Cruise ride, a Disneyland fixture since the park opened in 1955, recently underwent a significant overhaul that jettisoned its racist depictions of Indigenous people. The movie, through some clever tinkering, accomplishes something similar, turning its gallery of spear-brandishing headhunters into a sly joke at the expense of Western colonialist assumptions.

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Given the mutually beneficial relationship between the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and the films it spawned, I predict the same kind of relationship here. The climactic action — including revelations about Frank’s history — is so convoluted that many audiences will be checking out, especially as the movie careens toward the two-hour mark. That applies both to the unlocking of the Tears of the Moon mystery and to the inevitable battle with Aguirre and Joachim, even if the screenwriters’ bid to infuse a sense of the mythic elevates the story slightly above the generally juvenile level. Other than that, well…Plemons’ evil Saxon may worship the Kaiser instead of the Fürher, but he’s a screen Nazi by any other name, and the mustache-twirling giddiness he brings to this stock villain soon dissipates quicker than a cow leg in a piranha pool. And the ride’s legacy of blithe exoticism butting up against Tarzan-grade stereotypes — to quote a bit player here, “that booga-booga nonsense” — gets dealt with in a way that suggests a box has been summarily ticked off a previous-grievances list.

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Unsurprisingly, given his track record, Plemons steals the film right out from under its leads. Walt Disney originally intended that the Jungle Cruise would include live exotic animals, but experts warned him that live animals wouldn’t always cooperate for guests’ viewing pleasure. Attractions with live animals wouldn’t materialize until 1998 with the opening of Disney’s Animal Kingdom. The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local health officials.

(“Are you wearing pants under your pants?” Frank asks.) We also see some indiginous folks go shirtless or (in the case of women) shoulder-baring garb. Life-saving, underwater swaps of oxygen resemble a pair of lip-to-lip kisses. Some banter over treating a wound—with Frank asking Lily if it’s her “first time”—is filled with possible light double entendres.

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There’s a bunch of superfluous business with Nilo Nemolato (Paul Giamatti, with another shticky accent, plus a cockatoo), the commercial rival to whom he owes a bunch of money. But Lily is soon scammed into engaging Frank’s services, and they set off upriver on what could generously be called a rollicking, fantastical riff on Heart of Darkness. Some early humor comes from MacGregor packing like Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, with trunk after trunk of toiletries and apparel for every occasion, most of which Frank tosses overboard. Meanwhile, Lily’s radical-for-the-era choice of pants is repeatedly emphasized to establish her feminist bona fides.

The real scene-stealer is a photorealistic jaguar named Proxima, who becomes everyone’s favorite pet. But the staging and execution of the chases and fights compensates. Derivative of films that were themselves highly derivative, "Jungle Cruise" has the look and feel of a paycheck gig for all involved, but everyone seems to be having a great time, including the filmmakers. The Zambezi Queen is a luxurious river safari cruise on the Chobe River, where the four countries of Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and Namibia meet. Ideal for those who like to travel in style and comfort, yet still want to experience diverse wildlife and stunning natural surroundings.

Like Plemons and Giamatti, Ramirez is another talented actor squandered in a thankless part. There’s none of the hammy fun of his Pirates counterpart, played by Geoffrey Rush. The jungle and its creatures have ravaged the conquistadors’ bodies, suspending them between life and death, so Ramirez is rendered unrecognizable by CG excesses that transform him into a mass of writhing snakes.

If you’re visiting the Magic Kingdom during the Christmas season, the Jungle Cruise is transformed into the Jingle Cruise. As the story goes, the boat skippers are homesick around the holidays, so they added some holiday cheer to the jungle. Look for vintage seasonal decorations and signs around the queue area, a holiday radio music broadcast in the background, boats renamed with a holiday theme, and new jokes during your cruise.

“Jungle Cruise,” despite its more-than-capable leads and its much-vaunted attention to detail and verisimilitude, never feels transporting in the way that even mediocre blockbusters were once able to muster. It’s less an expedition than a simulation, a dispatch from a wild yet oddly pristine world where seeing is never close to believing. At times the leads seem more like a brother and sister needling each other than a will they/won’t they bantering couple. Lack of sexual heat is often (strangely) a bug, or perhaps a feature, in films starring Johnson, the four-quadrant blockbuster king (though not on Johnson’s HBO drama "Ballers"). Blunt keeps putting out more than enough flinty looks of interest to sell a romance, but her leading man rarely reflects it back at her.

Frankly it's surprising that McLean, whose previous movies (including Wolf Creek and The Belko Experiment) have pushed the envelope for gore, should tone down Jungle, as if attempting to respect its true story ... By the time the movie gets to its climax, with Yossi alone in the jungle and doing whatever it takes to survive, it fails to be either shocking or thrilling. Give Radcliffe credit, though, for his demanding physical performance; post-Harry Potter, he continues to select challenging projects.

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There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. He and the animal wrestle in a bar for a bit (threatened by a nearby tarantula and scorpion, who just minutes before had been locked in an apparent fight-to-the-death). A couple of guys get whacked in their privates (momentarily disabling them). People comically run into various hard surfaces, knocking them down or, in one case, plunging from a zip line. People are bitten by snakes, and at least a couple seem to die from the bites. The movie opens in earnest in London, where a villain quickly and cartoonishly dispatches a number of bearded scientists.

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It opened along with the original Disneyland way back in 1955, and countless guests line up to experience its charm—the animatronic animals, the wisecracking captains, the “backside of water”—every year. And while it has undergone its share of revisions (redesigning the boats and stripping the scenery of some uncomfortably racist elements), the ride that 7-year-olds experience today isn’t that much different from the ride their parents might’ve loved decades before. The Tears themselves were a gift from the gods, it’s suggested, and Frank named his boat after the goddess of the moon (Quilla, an actual Incan deity). The history of the tears is filled with magical happenings and elements, too, including a very effective curse. Apart from that, though, there is little apparent hope of an afterlife, but rather eternal rest.

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By the time Lily and fussbudget toff MacGregor reach the Brazilian port that will be their embarkation point, I was already growing restless. Though kids are the target demographic, anyone older is likely to spend a lot of time thinking about the superior films being ransacked here for ideas, among them Raiders of the Lost Ark, Romancing the Stone and The African Queen. But the Disney brand and the Rock factor should ensure a sizable audience. The supporting cast is stacked with overqualified character players.

Review: 'Jungle Cruise' is made from spare parts of better movies but kids will love it

Real straw wouldn’t stand up to the heat, humidity, and rain so common in Florida. The queue for this attraction is filled with wonderful details that one would expect to need for a jungle expedition. Mysterious crates, old maps, lanterns, and silly signs give guests plenty to look at to pass the time in line.

He tells Frank that he had to break the truth to a would-be female match that his “interests lie elsewhere,” and that he would’ve been disinherited and completely ostracized from society for “who I loved,” had it not been for Lily. This is the only reference to MacGregor’s sexual leanings, and it could sail over some younger viewers’ heads. Yet, the context of the conversation might make it more likely that those younger viewers will ask questions later. In flashback, we also see an indigenous group show great kindness to a handful of conquistadors. And we learn that at least one of those conquistadors sought out the Tears for a pretty good reason of his own. Still, Frank is roughly the size of a boat himself, which suggests he’s strong.

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Fortunately, the film's tight construction and prolific action scenes carry it, and Blunt and Johnson do the irresistible force/immovable object dynamic well enough, swapping energies as the story demands. It turns out that Blunt’s tart apple crisp of a comic performance pairs nicely with Johnson’s beefcake served with a side of ham. The actress, especially, seems to thrive in playing the Hepburn to Johnson’s buffed-up Bogart. She calls him “Skippy.” He calls her “Pants.” (Because she wears pants, and is also a lady.) They can almost jointly convince you this is a cruise worth taking. The most pleasant surprise is that director Jaume Collet-Serra ("The Shallows") and a credited team of five, count 'em, writers have largely jettisoned the ride's mid-century American colonial snarkiness and casual racism (a tradition only recently eliminated). The irresistibly charming stars help make this adventurous, occasionally swashbuckling ride adaptation amusing, if not as memorable as The Mummy or Pirates of the Caribbean.

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This includes mangrove swamp estuaries, which are coastal wetlands, found in tropical and subtropical regions. For nature lovers, the wildlife in the lower reaches of the Kinabatangan River is acknowledged by experts to be the most diverse and accessible wildlife in all of Southeast Asia. Once you are off on your river cruise and floating down the Congo, there is half of a crashed Lockheed plane sitting off in the jungle.

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The film boasts some delightfully hideous puns and stars a couple of charismatic Disney vets in Emily Blunt and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. In addition, the movie has more content issues than you might expect. While its pretty innocuous when it comes to skin and sensuality, Jungle Cruise is surprisingly violent and pretty scary. And I’ve not seen so much drinking in a film designed for families since Bogey and Hepburn sailed up the Congo on the African Queen. But it does stamp Jungle Cruise with a “best buy” date, because what society values shifts as society itself does. The morals culture embraces today may feel retro and even embarrassing 40 years from now.

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Acting awards are not in the cards for “Jungle Cruise,” though that’ll be no big whoop to preteens who manage to circumvent the film’s inexplicable PG-13 rating. Set in 1916, two years into World War I, the movie is built to distract young’uns with all-stops-out special effects. The Imagineers selected very specific plants that looked tropical, but were hardy enough to thrive in Florida winter weather that wasn’t quite as warm as in the real tropics. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks.

This tongue-in-cheek film is filled with hilarious scenes and will have your kids quoting lines of dialogue for years to come. The novelty here, already widely commented on while the film was in production, is Disney’s first openly gay character, MacGregor. Leaving aside the outcry over the casting of an actor who identifies as heterosexual, Brit comedian Whitehall is a likable presence, even if his posh blathering makes him more of a familiar type than a distinctive character. MacGregor’s account to Frank of his bumpy family history, being disinherited after refusing various suitable marriage opportunities because his interest lay “elsewhere,” is played unambiguously. But his gradual transformation from stuffed shirt into plucky adventurer is strictly by-the-numbers.

If you’re looking for adventure movies for kids, you can introduce them to Finding ‘Ohana, a story about siblings who set off on a treasure hunt in Hawaii and find more than they expect. Adventures of Tintin is a CGI animated film focusing on the adventures of the intrepid young reporter who stars in the European graphic novels. And, of course, the most outrageously funny adventure movie of all is Muppet Treasure Island, which provides manic fun (and some great music) for viewers of all ages.

The CGI is dicey, particularly on the larger jungle animals—was the production rushed, or were the artists just overworked? —and there are moments when everything seems so rubbery/plasticky that you seem to be watching the first film that was actually shot on location at Disney World. In the pantheon of Disney movies based on Disney theme park rides, "Jungle Cruise" is pretty good—leagues better than dreck like "Haunted Mansion," though not quite as satisfying as the original "Pirates of the Caribbean." Alternately, in much less time (eight minutes) and for no money at all, you could watch a video recording of said theme-park ride on YouTube. For Disney, Jungle Cruise is a thrill-ride of a film that will fill its coffers and keep viewers thinking of the titular theme park ride, which is now being refurbished to remove the egregious racism.