This film epitomises why I have a love-hate relationship with Disney. Growing up Disney films were my favourite and I was certain no one could ever beat them. Arguably Disney is so popular that it’s one of the few companies who are brave enough to make films with off-the-wall stories with a dash of charm – stories about a girl pretending to be a man (very controversial for 1998) and ends up saving China, stories about flying elephants and toys coming to life. They were also great at spreading wonderful messages; “Big Hero 6” showed boys everywhere it’s okay to cry and actually expressing emotion is what can be the first step to healing. Now, however, I’m having second thoughts about Disney. Most of Disney’s films in the past year and the next few years have been nothing but live-action remakes. I’ve really enjoyed the rare few recent original films like Inside Out and Zootopia as they showed what I loved best about Disney; an original narrative with beautiful animation to match. But this film is just another classic being unnecessarily remade. No one wanted it and yet here it is. Now before I dig into this film, I want to express the good things about the film. For one, the animation is surprising. After about 5 minutes you forget it’s animation, you feel like they’re really shooting in a jungle and that is an incredible feat. Ever since watching this film I’ve been watching so many behind the scenes videos because I’m still so shocked at how much of this is animation. In fact, I started watching them because I didn’t believe that the background was animation. Something else good about this film is the story line. It’s very true to the original, containing the same classic songs and the all your favourite characters are there. Except the characters are the first problem…. ….I’m not sure some of the actors were best matched to the characters. I won’t deny that Bill Murray was definitely the right choice for Baloo. After all, he’s a sweet old man matched to the character of a sweet friendly bear. Idris Elba was also cast well; if you’ve ever seen him in Luther or any other live action roles you’ll know how threatening and scary he can be, so his match for the villain was a good choice. However was Christopher Walken really the best choice for King Louie? In the original he was played by Louis Prima, a Jazz singer which made him perfect to sing the famous song. But Christopher Walken? He seemed to turn King Louie into the thing of nightmares, and the character design didn’t make it any better. Seriously who thought they’d turn a small cute little orange orangutan that dances with Mowgli in the original into something that must have been bigger than 2 double decker buses, wider than 3 and that hid in the shadows? Perhaps the role shouldn’t have been played by Christopher Walken, perhaps Christopher should’ve Walkout. (I’d like to apologise for that terrible pun now). Like I mentioned above, this adaptation stuck to the original story line but that did cause me to ask the question “why has this been remade?”. If Disney had nothing new to bring to the story why bother remaking it? Maybe the biggest question should be “why remake it as live action?” instead. It makes no sense when the only thing that isn’t CGI is Mowgli. It makes no sense when you could have remade it but kept it as an animation. Making it live action doesn’t bring anything new to the table, Disney, you have actually be creative if you want to remake a film well. And this is my biggest issue with the film, as average as it is, it wasn’t worth a remake. Normally I wouldn’t rant with a film with as average a rating of this but the issue lies in how it’s contributing to a remake/ sequel cesspit that only lesser film production companies should add to. As a child Disney seemed like one of the few film companies that were making films to entertain and create original story lines with original characters but now they’re going in a downward spiral of remake after remake. Cinderella, Tarzan, (rumours of) Winnie The Pooh, Sleeping Beauty, Dumbo, Beauty And The Beast, The Lion King… need I go on? So I have one final message for Disney. You can be so funny, heart warming and revolutionary when you want so what happened to you? I know you want money but wouldn’t it be fantastic if you could keep your integrity *and* make money? It’s possible; you’ve shown it before and it still is possible. I rate this film 6.5/10 but don’t you remember when you used to regularly receive 8, 9 and 10 out of 10s? I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed. Go sit on the naughty step and don’t come back until you’ve thought about what you’ve done.