Welcome to The Jungle... Book Trailer

The first of two incoming adaptations of The Jungle Book is on its way in 2016 and Disney have just released the first trailer. The trailer follows hot on the heels of director Jon Favreau’s seconds long tease of the trailer on Instagram yesterday.

Favreau’s Disney funded adaptation is going to beat Andy Serkis’ own adaptation, titled Jungle Book: Origins to screens by over a year. However, the pedigree of talent involved in each means that they may yet both be worth a look.

The trailer for Favreau’s version shows jungle-boy Mowgli skipping along tree branches, facing up to his rather large snake mentor Kaa, and running for his life from villainous tiger Shere Khan. There’s even time for a quick float down the river on the belly of Baloo as the bear whistles the Bare Necessities. 

Favreau directed the first two Iron Man films as well as modern Christmas classic Elf. Unknown actor Neel Sethi will make his feature debut as Mowgli and will be the only actor appearing on screen in live action. The locations and all other characters have been created using CGI and the voice cast includes Scarlett Johansson as Kaa, Idris Elba as Shere Khan, Bill Murray as Baloo, Ben Kingsley as Bagheera and Christopher Walken as King Louie.

With that cast, you’d think Serkis’ own version wouldn’t stand a chance but don’t worry too much for him. Serkis has Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett and Benedict Cumberbatch all on board for his version.

Watch the trailer for Jon Favreau's The Jungle Book here:

Her Review

It’s not that weird to suggest a guy could fall in love with Scarlett Johansson just from hearing her sultry voice alone. Even if Scar-Jo is only the voice of operating system Samantha in Her, she is still sexy as hell; funny, inquisitive and doting all at once. Spike Jonze’s latest film as writer/director envisions a not too distant future where people could realistically fall in love with their artificially intelligent operating systems without worrying about the social stigma of appearing to talk to themselves in public.

Joaquin Phoenix plays unlucky in love Theodore who has lost the love of his life (Rooney Mara) and is now going through a tricky divorce. Working as a greeting card writer, he conjures and delivers beautifully written bits of prose to lovers who can’t be bothered writing the words for themselves. In Jonze’s future, real relationships have become as meaningless as these false communications written by countless writers like Theodore in call centre like offices. People roam the streets with ear pieces stuck in their brains for making contact with people who are not actually there with them. Everyone is mad; everybody is talking to the voices in their heads. When Theodore gets his new artificially intelligent operating system Samantha, his relationship seems little different to anyone else’s in this strange but familiar new world.

Theodore tries dating, phone sex and confiding in friends but no one understands him like Samantha. With access to his emails, contacts and the ability to learn, laugh and share every moment with him, Samantha and Theodore appear to be every bit as in love as anyone else. She may be there simply to serve him but she grows with him, explores and evolves with him and appears to fall in love with him. It is hard not to fall in love with selfless Samantha. She shows signs of developing clear feelings; fantasising, getting excited and developing an infectious personality. She is bubbly and fun and as she is learning about the world, she shares her joy with the jaded Theodore.

Phoenix is completely believable as Theodore; a love sick puppy who just wants to feel what he felt with his wife before their divorce. Johansson manages to make a character completely convincing despite no on screen presence. Jonze explores the relationship, the repercussions and the possibilities of the idea through a brilliantly clever script filled with wit, warmth and whimsy. From the idea of OS surrogates to the realisation of future video games, Jonze’s future is perfectly detailed and credible. With Amy Adams as an unhappy in her relationship neighbour and Olivia Wilde as a terrifying date, it is no wonder that Theodore thinks sticking to dating his operating system will bring happiness.

Falling in love may be, as one character says, a form of socially acceptable insanity but it’s ultimately impossible not to love every bit of Her.

Don Jon Review

Joseph Gordon Levitt's directorial debut throbs with energy, intent and depravity. Don Jon is the story of Levitt's Jon, known as Don to his friends due to his extraordinary and enviable  talent with the ladies. Despite his affection for, and his attention from, the ladies though, Jon likes nothing more than to bash the bishop to seedy internet porn. His succession of one night stands mean he can avoid a meaningful relationship and skip easily between the women he takes home from the clubs and the impossibly endowed women that light up his laptop by night.

Jon might be played with plenty of cocksure confidence by Levitt but he is a also just a jerk who is obsessed with jerking off. He thinks little of women except about where they fit on his appearance scale with 10 being a perfect 'dime'. Enter Scarlett Johansson. The women in Jon's life range from his phone wielding near silent sister and his stereotypical shrieking mother to the gorgeous Scarlett Johansson and finally to Julianne Moore, past her prime but still irresistible in her own unique way. Johansson takes seductive to a new level while Moore offers something different to the eye popping proportions of the other women that Jon so vigorously 'admires'.

Jon's life is presented as cyclical and repetitive with scenes taking on a recurring rhythm; wanking, clubbing, church confessions, family dinner, working out, road rage and repeat. The introduction of Johansson's buxom blonde throws a bit of a spanner in the works but the formula remains the same. Jon does less slapping of the salami and more evening classes to appease his gorgeous new girl while his family dinners suddenly become a little more livelier now that his aggressively stereotyped mother and father find his love life more interesting. Tony Danza's Dad is particularly entertaining, all ogling eyes and inappropriate responses to his potential future daughter in law.

Overall, Don Jon is equal parts hilarious and depressing. It has something to say about relationships and questions the sexualisation of women in modern culture. In amidst the thrusts of gratuitous nudity and carefully cut images of hard core porn, there is a message and more than a hint of a romantic heart at the centre of what looks like a phwoar-some sex comedy at first. Like Fight Club with its view of modern men shaped by a society that is forcing them back into their primal man caves, many will find only misogyny here. There is plenty on offer from Jon and his boys and arguably the representation of women but deep beneath it emerges something more complex (if also more formulaic and less funny).

Don Jon is an incredibly confident directorial debut, as well as giving Levitt a role that demands he is in almost every frame, buffed up, preening and at his most revealing. It is a brave film and a brave performance. The laying bare of modern masculinity in the writing, the frequent bursts of stylistic flair and the nakedness of Levitt's performance all ensure that Don Jon will stick in the memory, not a discarded tissue for a long time to... um... come.

More reviews from I Love That Film:

Machete Kills, The Conspiracy, Snitch and more

Ender's Game

Sunshine on Leith Review

How I Live Now

Filth

The Call

Rush

The Lone Ranger

You're Next

We're the Millers

Hitchcock Review

Inviting comparisons to Psycho is never going to help a movie. Making a movie about one of the greatest film directors in history is not going to guarantee you a great movie either. With Hitchcock, director Sacha Gervasi is aiming high but also cruising for a bruising. Despite stars Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren and an almost never sweeter Scarlett Johannson, Hitchcock is overall not as suspenseful as a film about the master of suspense should be.

While Hopkins does a pretty good Hitchcock, it is far from one his best performances. Mirren fares better with her loving and loyal wife Alma being the revelation of the story, both in performance and narrative positioning. Hitchcock is the story of how Psycho got made. Taking us from the success of North By Northwest to the premiere of Psycho and detailing both the personal and professional problems Hitchcock faced in getting the film made.

It has some wonderfully weird additions. Ed Gein (the inspiration for Psycho) repeatedly showing up to toy with Hitchcock is effective at the start but eventually fails to maintain interest. However it does make me wonder what Gervasi could do with a horror film as the production design of the scenes featuring Gein are great. Hitchcock talks to us in the audience at a couple of moments as he did in his trailers occasionally adding an amusing touch.

However, the best and most obviously unfortunate scenes on the film are the recreations of the Psycho set and watching Hitchcock at work. While these scenes are brilliant to watch and any film fan will find the the recreation of the production of the classic film Psycho as enthralling as watching Melies creating Voyage to the Moon in the recent Hugo, they also mean that the only way that Hitchcock could end satisfyingly is by being a double bill with Psycho itself.

The end of the film just can't compare to being able to sit and watch the fruit of Hitchcock's labour. If the film just ended with us being able to watch Psycho all the way through from start to finish, it would have made Hitchcock an infinitely better movie. As it is, Hitchcock will interest fans of the master but I'm not sure many others will be lured.

Hitchcock is out February 8th 2013 in UK cinemas.Watch the trailer below: