The Jungle Book is a new Disney film directed by Jon Favreau, and starring Neel Sethi as the young Mowgli, and A-list actors such as: Scarlett Johansson, Bill Murray, Idris Elba, and Ben Kingsley.

This live-action film is a great advancement in cinematography for the reason that this movie was entirely CGI (except for the human characters) in Los Angeles, which is astounding considering that the movie takes place in a jungle, and the cast and crew didn’t have to travel to a real jungle for any of the filming sequences. This is also a very enjoyable family movie, but viewer discretion is advised due to some scary/intense scenes.

Now in regards to the story of movie, it stays very true to the original 1967 animated telling of the story. [SPOILERS] It includes the background of how Mowgli was an infant when the panther Bagheera found him, Mowgli living with the wolf pack, it explains Shere Khan’s hatred for man, “The Bare Necessities” song, etc. The film does stay true to the original story but some of it is altered or there is more depth given. For example the original just says that Shere Khan hates mankind because of their use of fire, and in this film it has a flashback of Shere Khan attacking Mowgli’s father and being burned by fire. Other examples are when the characters sing songs like “The Bare Necessities” and “I Wan’na Be Like You.”

Overall this movie “flows” smoothly and transitions at the right times. When the movie needs to be fun and silly it works at the right times, or if it needed to be intense and/or terrifying it transitioned nicely and everything felt right.