The Jungle Book 2 (2003)
When a studio resorts to creating a glut of unnecessary sequels, that shows a sign that they’re creatively bankrupt.
Brief Backstory
During the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s, Disney created numerous direct-to-video sequels to their earlier movies, none of which were remotely enjoyable (excluding Return of Jafar and Aladdin and the King of Thieves, but those were technically the pilot and series finale of the 1994 animated series). These included Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride, Cinderella III: A Twist in Time, Kronk’s New Groove, etc. and were constantly advertised like crazy. Unlike the majority of these sequels, The Jungle Book 2 was brought to the theaters, much like The Rescuers Down Under and Fantasia 2000, both of which are well beloved, while the Jungle Book 2 was given negative reception.
Story
Tired of his life in the village, Mowgli yearns to go back to the jungle. Coincidentally enough, Baloo yearns for Mowgli and takes him back there disregarding the threat of Shere Khan. The rest of the inhabitants of the jungle attempt to prevent Baloo from taking Mowgli away from the man village, but to no avail, and Shanti is forced to storm the jungle and find Mowgli before Shere Khan does.
Random Facts
Third movie where the phrase “you deliberately disobeyed me” is uttered. Mufasa says it in Lion King and Ariel says it in Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea (another shitty sequel).
The village leader is voiced by John Rhys-Davies, voice of Man Ray from SpongeBob and Cassim from Aladdin and the King of Thieves, but most famous for playing Sallah in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. He recently made his third appearance in the universally disgraceful Dial of Destiny.
Tony Jay voices Shere Khan, previously already have voiced him in the classic animated series TaleSpin. Ed Gilbert, Baloo’s voice in TaleSpin, died a few years before The Jungle Book 2 was even a thing.
From what I’ve heard, there were plans for a sequel dating back to immediately after the first movie came out but it was scrapped quickly, probably due to Walt’s death. Baloo would still be trying to get Mowgli back – look up Further Adventures of Mowgli by Disneyland records for some info on that.
King Louie doesn’t appear in this movie. Neither does Winifred, as evident by Colonel Hathi saying “men” (men is not a gender neutral word, don’t even fucking try to challenge that unless you’re trying to prove gender confusion.) or the wolves. Well at least they can count their blessing that they didn’t end up in this mess.
Random Opinions
There is so much character derailment in this movie it’s not even funny.
Ranjan must be great grandson of Zephyr, since he does nothing but annoy the hell out of the audience while the audience demands him to be euthanized.
I couldn’t sit through the whole movie without breaking out the Budweiser stash. It’s pretty much just as bad as When Worlds Collide.
The village leader is a hypocrite and I don’t give a shit about his experiences about getting gravely injured in the jungle and his wounds to prove that. Mowgli fought the fucking tiger (Shere Khan) in the original movie and used a burning stick to force Shere Khan to run away without getting wounded. Also Mowgli spent almost his whole life in the jungle.
For ranking the worst of the cheapquels, this one is probably in the top 5. Mind you MOST of these direct-to-video STDs aren’t even close to as bad as any of the live action remakes. The absolute worst ones actually are worse than their live action remakes, but only of few of them actually do go to that level.
Pros
- Animation quality looks decent.
- It’s better than the live action remake from 2016 but that’s not saying much.
- Smash Mouth covers I Wanna Be Like You.
Cons
- Songs all suck. Some of them are even reused from the original.
- Shanti’s character is derailed by stating that she manipulated Mowgli into going into the village, whereas in the original movie he fell in love with her and wanted to be with her.
- Furthermore, after having already seen Baloo get his ass handed by Shere Khan previously, why would Mowgli feel safe with him?!!!
- Probably the biggest one: Why was this movie even made?! It’s a disgrace to Walt Disney’s legacy and serves no purpose than something to watch while drinking a full 18 pack of Milwaukee’s Best Ice or Bud Ice.
Rating: 2.5/10 – Terrible
This should not have been made. Disney was well aware their direct to video sequels generated adversarial reception, and they just kept sitting back and making more. Do not bother watching it, you can find way better movies to watch.
The scariest part of all this is that these sequels would serve as a precursor to the live-action remake fetish that plagued Disney a decade later and further onwards to. I’ll probably review more of these later on.
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