Jungle Cruise
Ten Second Review: A surprisingly fun romp that suffered from being a touch too lengthy to hold your full attention by the end.
Disney World attractions have spawned some brilliant films through the years like curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man’s Chest and Country bears. They have also spawned some awful films like On Stranger Tides, Dead Men Tell No Tales and Country Bears. They aren’t the worst place to start building films from; attractions are often narrative and have excitement built in which is most often what you want from a summer popcorn film.
Jungle Cruise sees an expedition headed by trouser wearing explorer Lily (Emily Blunt) as she searches for a legendary tree with healing properties. She is aided by her brother McGregor (Jack Whitehall) and boat captain Frank (Dwayne Johnson). As the legend begins to get more real than mythical, the trio will have to survive a perilous journey to reach their goal.
It really is a simple concept which when well executed makes for really fun viewing and by and large, it is just that. The script is actively and purposefully cheesy, the acting is the right side of panto and the story is just about engaging enough to keep the story moving.
The main problem the film has is in being a little bloated. It really feels as though they could have removed a fair amount of excess and helped bring the runtime down from it’s lofty two hours. It’s a fun film but I imagine many audiences will loose interest in some of the tangents and a hard edit could have helped this. It also takes its time to get going which again adds to its overall runtime issue.
The film also has a few problematic issues that may perturb some more specific audiences. The Spanish conquistadors stealing and pillaging is already a touchy subject, but adding into the mix a brit who when questioned on her own stealing of a cultural artefact dubs it “liberation”, I can see people squirming. There’s also a few too many saviour narratives for a film that is already on shakey ground. Disney also chose to use the film as a platform to feature a gay character and while my initial response to the strong-armed in moment was, “that was awkwardly handled, but better late than never” my response by the end was much less positive. I’m not going to attack the film for not having the character say “I am gay”, it was clear enough for me what he was saying, but that doesn’t excuse their treatment of the character. If Disney had taken a firm stance earlier and not chickened out on too many opportunities for lgbtq+ characters over the past few years then maybe the jokes that are predicated on a specific character’s sexuality might feel fun, but instead it reads as a multi-national corporation taking in the pink pound only to repay it with tired outdated “humour”. Am I also to assume that Disney couldn’t find a gay actor to play the part or would that have been going too far?
To an uncritical eye Jungle Cruise is a lot of fun and I imagine audiences will very much enjoy it. In the first half I was imagining giving it a 5 or 6 star rating because it was a good adventure film with nice set pieces and some engaging over the top campy acting. The second half rather diminished this. I still imagine many audiences enjoying the whole thing but I couldn’t personally enjoy it quite as much. It was just a touch too long and the good merits it has are rather tarnished by some bad writing choices. It was very nice to see a summer blockbuster from Disney with a little more darkness to it though, so I do hope we see more of that in the future. Very much a return to Pirates of the Caribbean!
