Disney Movie Discussion

[Dong Zhou]

Watched Jon Favreau's 2016 version of The Jungle Book. Visually very very impressive work to create the jungle and the animals in such a beautiful way which was mentioned a lot at the time this came out. Favreau and co clearly have a lot of love for Disney (can't comment on what they took from Kipling) with some delightful touches

loved the book at the end like the old films

and nods while they avoided the trap of copying too closely, only time I felt nods didn't work were the songs which were lacking for me, things like the Bare Necessities were better as part of the incidental music rather then sung. Mowgli (Neel Sethi) felt like an actual child rather then a Hollywood version of a child, very good voicework generally, just about enough humour.

I did feel it's baddies were lacking with the exception of Kaa's (Scarlett Johansson) one scene, they tried hard with Shere Khan (Idris Elba) and did all the right things (bar his scar isn't noticeable on a small screen) but there was a lack of power for me. King Louie (Christopher Walken) they had an intresting idea or two with him but I felt Walken was poor and didn't fit the general theme of the movie. I did feel second half had a few moments that drifted but overall felt it was a nice movie but one whose visuals were better then the overall content.

[Sun Fin]

I disagree about King Louie, I thought he was terrifying for a kids movie. Would definitely agree with the music, I thought Bare Necessities' was the only one that kinda worked.

[Dong Zhou]

I thought the idea behind him worked , I just blame Walken or whoever told him to do it in that style

[Dong Zhou]

Gah lost my post

Watched Disney short Olaf's Frozen Adventure, a half hour Christmas adventure which did not go down well in cinemas. We watched it on TV at a time of our choosing which may have helped but we quite liked it. Songs are forgettable at best and not a particularly good setup but we enjoyed the humour, particularly poking fun at some Christmas traditions

Had been looking forward to Moana, it had good reviews at the time though slipped off the radar quickly, it was covering a tale I hadn't heard of a pacific island culture rarely covered (though not without controversy), I tend to enjoy Dwayne Johnson's work. It starts badly, not the little round up of the history one needs but afters like setting up our heroine (Auli'i Cravalho). It is visually beautiful and remarkable how good animation is nowadays, there was humour from the animals (so much so, some of the family were annoyed one got left out of the main adventure) and the grandma (Rachel House) but songs in that section are poor, Moana and her family struggle to hold the attention and it feels like it takes awhile for the adventure to begin.

Once it does, it does go better. There is plenty of humour be it situational comedy, Moana herself, Maui (Dwayne Johnson) and his tattoos, the hilarious chicken, it was still beautiful, it is a decent enough adventure, most songs forgettable but Maui's introduction one is fun and they have a good villain song thanks to visual effects. Yet when Moana herself is meant to be leading the film, she can't quite do it and there is a sense of the film being longer then it is due to bad pace, ending has one nice scene but lacks punch.