The Jungle Book (1967) - 78 minutes

A little boy is raised in the wilds of India by some friendly forest creatures.  But when Sher Khan comes to eat the boy, it looks like the only option is for him to return to a village of men.


Eli

Rating: 7/10

Reaction: So this wasn't exactly my favorite Disney movie growing up, but thanks to the Disney Sing-A-Long videos (remember that crazy owl zooming all around during the intro?) I will never forget the song Bare Necessities. The music in this film is totally great, and I even heard some new tunes that I don't remember from watching this as a kid, for instance the song where the girl is fetching the water: "I must fetch the water until I am grown."

The story is pretty simple. A boy is raised by wolves (literally) and he doesn't want to go back to the Man Village. But his animal friends know that eventually, he is going to have to go. But he has a few adventures with a herd of elephants, a bear (are there bears in the Indian jungles?) and a panther who help him on his way. And lest we forget the fearsome Shear Khan, whom we don't even see until the last few minutes of the film. He is the dreaded tiger that everyone fears, but when we finally meet our villain, he's an effeminate deep-voiced slip-of-a-thing, so I'd be more afraid that he'd ask me to a bake-off or crocheting party than to eat me. It was also fun to hear familiar voice actors in this movie. Winnie-The-Pooh's signature voices makes an appearance as the slithery Kaa the snake, sinister and somewhat simple here. Also Baloo seems to be a voice we will hear again in the upcoming Robin Hood, again, playing a bear, this time Little John. All in all, this is a quick and enjoyable Disney film, with many likeable characters and some clever music.


Regan

Rating: 7/10

Reaction: I really loved this movie growing up, and watching it again it's not hard to see why.  My favorite character is definitely Baloo, the kind-hearted, singing bear who takes Mowgli under his wing and decides to raise him as his own cub.  His song "The Bare Necessities" is one of those fun, catchy tunes you can't help but love.

Plot-wise, this isn't the most focused story--the threat of Sher Khan hangs over Mowgli's head the whole movie, but mostly we just follow his random adventures with various creatures before he finally defeats Sher Khan with the help of some friendly vultures (what a nice change of pace!) and ultimately decides to go back to the human village because he meets a cute chick.  I enjoyed the encounter with the monkeys, but it didn't really add much to the story (although the king orangutan's song is extremely catchy).

On a random note, I think the animals that Disney has most consistently done well are elephants--every time they pop up in a Disney animation, whether short or long, the elephants are lovable and fascinating, probably because the baby elephants are always so much smaller than the big ones.