Jungle Cruise (2021)

[Eric Prime]

Allushen!

[FilmFincher]

It was a serviceable adventure movie. I had fun. Some solid character work in there (everyone gets their little arc), a few hearty chuckles, some twists and turns.

 

I'm in love with Emily Blunt. Why does she not have her own franchise.

 

Thought the villains were pretty entertaining as well, there's a nice dynamic there. 

 

I very much enjoyed that flashback scene in the middle of the film and music choice. 

 

What kept bringing it down was the direction, especially the editing and coverage. Zero sense of geography when it came to the set-pieces. You wouldn't think this cost over $100M, the film has no sense of scope or romance for the big screen.

 

Maybe I'm spoiled, I got the Indiana Jones 4k boxset last weekend and binged it and this just kind of feels like the diet version of all those adventure movies you want it to be. 

 

Fairly good time while I watched it though, would recommend waiting until it's free on Disney+

 

6/10

[Morieris]

I think the shining point in this movie is McGregor.  The delivery of the witticisms and fish out of water was really well done. As for the rest of it, It starts off strong, but I didn't get a sake of adventure later on and despite starring two of the most charismatic people in Hollywood, they had no charisma with each other.

 

Spoiler

The fight scene in the jungle amongst the Tupi tribe was really cool though. And the twist caught me off guard.

 

We're getting to the point where it's not enough to simply have a new movie out during a pandemic, it has to be worth the 2 hour runtime.

[filmlover]

Fun, if at least 20 minutes too long. What elevates the movie above its cliché-filled script is the combo of Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt: they are clearly having a blast playing off of each other, and I'd gladly welcome seeing them team up again in another project in the event this doesn't get a sequel. Jack Whitehall is also surprisingly entertaining (a stark contrast to the usual annoying sidekicks that exist only to provide comic relief in movies like this), while Jesse Plemons and Edgar Ramirez make the most of the generic bad guy roles they get saddled with. It's not an instant classic like Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl but it is an enjoyable time at the movies that proves it really is possible to make a good feature-length motion picture out of a Disney Parks attraction. B

[Webslinger]

Jungle Cruise has all the right ingredients for a fun summer blockbuster, but the final product doesn’t really come together. It’s easy to see the potential for a 2020s riff on the classic adventurers formula set forth by The African Queen, especially with the effective humor on display in the trailers and the pairing of two actors as charismatic and conscious of their onscreen strengths as Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson. However, the biggest problem Jungle Cruise faces from its opening minutes on is the fact that it overdoes much of its narrative, focusing less on the character beats that work in favor of telling a story that grows gradually sillier and more convoluted. The supernatural elements of the film – which are established in an info dump at the very beginning, then go largely ignored until the second half of the run time – overcomplicate what, at its heart, should be a fairly simple story, and they force the film into a plot-driven approach that deemphasizes the smaller character beats that it feels much more successful at hitting. Blunt and Johnson are both amiable as ever, and the film is at its best when it slows down and lets them use their charm to win viewers over. They play their roles well, and they’re savvy enough in this territory to add layers to their characters that don’t necessarily seem present in the script. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast doesn’t measure up, starting with Jesse Plemons as a surprisingly boring villain. Plemons has proven adept in putting unique spins on characters (most notably in Game Night), but he is given too little room to work here. There’s also what’s sure to be a divisive performance from Jack Whitehall as Blunt’s effeminate brother; my audience laughed at many of his jokes and mannerisms, but I found his work cringey (it feels like the kind of role that Dan Levy could have slayed, but it comes across wrong in less talented hands). There’s enough happening in the film to keep audiences entertained, and truly, I suspect that many viewers who see this film will enjoy it – as did the audience I saw it with; for me, though, it felt like a case of a whole lot of less effective decisions ultimately drowned out the more effective ones.

 

C