Unlike Disney’s two takes on The Jungle Book-the 1967 animated version and the (broadly similar) 2016 “live-action” remake-Serkis’s film makes some effort to grapple with the colonial malevolence of Kipling’s tales. Mowgli (Rohan Chand) is a human child raised in the jungle by kindly wolves who is contending with the encroachment of man and other predators. The script, from the debut writer Callie Kloves, is a grittier, more violent take on Kipling’s Mowgli tales (drawing from The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book), but the narrative remains familiar. Serkis-who has also played motion-capture luminaries such as Star Wars’ Snoke, Planet of the Apes’ Caesar, and Tintin’s Captain Haddock-seems to have directed all his attention to Mowgli’s animal creations. Still, it’s easy to see why Mowgli was shuffled over to streaming: For all the time Serkis has had to tinker with it, the film feels painfully incomplete, from its frequently told story to its weak visuals.
Rise of the planet of the apes on netflix movie#
That means the movie won’t play on big screens outside of a very limited release, which is unfortunate for a work made on such an epic scale.
Filmed in 2015, it languished in post-production for nearly three years last July, Netflix acquired the distribution rights from Warner Bros. Mowgli, which is being promoted with the unnecessary subtitle Legend of the Jungle, has had a strange route to the screen. As the director of Mowgli, debuting on Netflix December 7 after a limited theatrical run, Serkis has to draw out compelling performances from a tiger, a panther, and a pack of wolves-all of them computer-generated. So it makes some sort of sense that he’d be tasked with bringing a story like Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book to life. As Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, Serkis found new and innovative ways to emote through layers of technology and make otherworldly characters feel tangible. That might sound like a backhanded compliment, but in this CGI-dappled, fantasy-dominated century of cinema, it’s an estimable title.
Andy Serkis is, by acclimation, the greatest motion-capture actor ever.