The Jungle Book (1994)

Jungle Book entertains in a way both contemporary and traditional.

The new attempt - a live-action adaptation - is unlikely to supplant the cartoon version in anyone's affections.

That's the biggest problem with this Jungle Book. Sommers is so busy spinning his camera, crowding the soundtrack with animal noises and piling on the cheesy visual effects that he can't stop for a reflective moment or a character-revealing touch.

This Jungle Book, however, is more remindful of Disney's classic wildlife adventure pics than it is of a cartoon, and it is most remindful of that other jungle classic, Tarzan.

Rent the animated film instead.

A full-throttled, technically superb adventure - with more bite than most Disney live-action fare - that offers some winning moments but, ultimately, isn't as involving as it needs to be.

The acting troupe are great fun: Lee looks fit, Headey is sweet enough in a narrow role, Cleese fine-tunes his predictable Fawlty bit and Elwes stiff-upper lips to excess.

Anyone familiar with Rudyard Kipling's stories will be forgiven for spending the first half of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book squirming with outrage and confusion.

In the end, Rudyard's Kipling's The Jungle Book gains very little from this newest incarnation. As live-action fare, it has nothing on the 1942 version of the story that starred the Indian actor Sabu as Kipling's wild child.

This live-action rumble-in-the-jungle version of the story of Mowgli, the boy brought up to adulthood by wolves, may lack the songs and magic of the classic Disney feature-length cartoon, but it is closer to Kipling's original tale.

Frequently beautiful and with much to recommend it.

Stunning production design, smart pacing, and a well-handled romantic angle make for a seamless, if undemanding, entertainment.