Ace Attorney Episode 5 Review

Moving right along

(This review contains spoilers!)

          Ask anyone what their favourite part of the Ace Attorney games are, and I guarantee they’ll say the courtroom scenes. How could they not? The deliberations, the cross-examinations, the revelations about the characters, it’s always a blast to play through. On the other hand, there’s the investigation segments. I always found they went on a bit too long, but I still found them necessary and enjoyable enough.

          It seem that the showrunners agreed with me, but to an even higher extreme, as they skipped over more than half of the investigation segment for this episode’s case.

          It’s shocking just how much essential information they just showed by montage. The security camera that was vital to the first courtroom scene was skimmed over, leaving it a surprise piece of evidence. An entire character’s questioning was passed by, leaving her anonymous. And why was this all done? To give us more time with the security lady.

          I could go on with how annoying she is as a character, but I know she’s deliberately written that way, so I won’t. Instead, I’ll focus on how stupid it is to only show Phoenix questioning one person, when it’s made very clear that there were other staff on site the day of the murder. Aside from the girl he’s shown questioning, he isn’t shown talking to any of the staff onscreen. Why not just add that to the montage you already have?

          The Steel Samurai case was never one of my personal favourites, but I’d forgotten who the true culprit was. I was looking forward to figuring it out myself again.

          That is, until the show blatantly told me who it was.

          This is a huge problem with the anime. It immediately assumes you’ve played the game, and literally spoon-feeds you the information on who did the murder. The true killer is shown for a few seconds, makes a snide remark, and then is never shown again for the rest of the episode. If I didn’t already know who it was because I played the game, I’m sure it wouldn’t take a brain surgeon to figure it out.

         Then there’s also the problem that once again, the subtitles list the characters with their Japanese names instead of the English translations, but this is more the translator’s fault than the show itself.

          However, it underlines a huge problem with Ace Attorney: it’s just not trying hard enough. It’s the kind of show that feels like it can get away with name recognition alone, quality be damned. At this point, I’d still recommend playing the game over watching the anime. It’s more fun, and you get to really uncover all the secrets behind the case yourself, including who really did the crime.

FINAL SCORE

4/10

Mediocre

Space Patrol Luluco Episode 5 Review

Not Justice!

(This review contains spoilers!)

          Things have gotten even weirder in Luluco’s world, as we’ve been introduced to our first major villain. Luluco’s space pirate mother has been introduced, and it seems like she has some nefarious plan to subdue our heroes.

          A plan that involves kidnapping Luluco’s still-frozen father, picking up the entire town, and selling it on an online auction. I couldn’t make this up if I tried.

          Anyways, our first battle of the Space Patrol vs. the Space Pirates was very flashy and fun, as to be expected of this show, but I felt like it was lacking just a bit. For one thing, Luluco’s mother seems extremely overpowered, to the point when even the Chief, in his Gun Morphing form, couldn’t even lay a scratch on her. I guess they were trying to show just how skilled she is, but it came across more as just plain silliness at some points.

          Speaking of the Chief, he was probably my favourite part of this episode, and one of my favourite things in the show altogether. He always makes me crack a smile, whether he’s trying and failing to call another division of the Space Patrol or arresting and freeing Luluco repeatedly. The scene when we saw his Gun Morphing for the first time was really well done, and he really felt like the intimidating head of Space Patrol he was built up to be, even though he was taken out just seconds later.

          The other characters were excellent as always, and I’m finally starting to warm up to Nova and Midori more. The voice actress playing Luluco did an especially outstanding job with this episode, perfectly capturing how she was feeling. I don’t feel I address enough how Luluco is still the heart and soul of the show, and she is absolutely the best part. She feels less like the typical hero thrust into an uncomfortable situation character, and more like the underdog you love to root for.

          The one character I’m not enjoying, however, is Luluco’s mother. She feels completely out of place in this show, feeling more like one of the first villains fought in a typical shonen anime. Her outfit is hideous, and she really doesn’t have much clear motivation besides “she does what she wants”.

          Then again, maybe I’m looking into it too much. Where it really counts, this anime absolutely excels, and it’s still one of the funniest I’ve seen in recent memory.

FINAL SCORE

7/10

Good

We Bare Bears Review: "Losing Ice"

They can’t all be winners

(This review contains spoilers!)

          Not only was this episode bad, it was pretty much the pinnacle of everything that could go wrong with a We Bare Bears episode. A lousy plot, awful side characters, unfunny jokes, and just general annoying behaviour by the bears were all out in full force, leaving us with what may very well be the worst 11 minutes this show’s put out.

          Where to start? Firstly, let’s go over the plot. Ice Bear leaves home and takes a job at an Asian food restaurant because Grizz and Panda were late to dinner. Feeling dejected, the other bears decide to replace him, but things go awry and they try to get their brother back. If it feels like you’ve heard this story before, it’s because you probably have.

          Now here are my main problems with this plot. Firstly, this entire episode could’ve been avoided if Ice Bear waited another 30 seconds. Grizz and Panda didn’t take that long to finish their show, certainly not long enough for him to feel justified to run away from home.

          Secondly, and the biggest problem, this conflict doesn’t feel earned. As I’ve said before, We Bare Bears does an excellent job of showing that these brothers will go through thick and thin for each other, even if they butt heads once in a while. But now you’re telling me that Ice Bear will abandon the people he’s been with since he was a cub because they were a few minutes late for dinner!? That just doesn’t add up!

          And finally, there’s the fact that the other bears decide to replace their brother. I’m going to be honest, I didn’t think that they could come up with a side character worse than Charlie, but somehow, Darryl accomplished it. Whenever he was onscreen, he was a complete nuisance, and I’m glad that the ending implied that we won’t be seeing him again.

          Only two jokes made me even chuckle throughout the whole episode: a cute Lion King reference towards the end, and a joke about kobe beef. That’s it. The rest was just annoying. Even the visuals seemed like they didn’t even try this episode. There was one scene where the bears were running along, and the background trees looked like flat cardboard cut outs. They didn’t even try to hide it.

          Every show inevitably will have bad episodes, but at least they usually try. Losing Ice feels like what happens if you put as little effort as possible into putting out an episode. But still, a little effort is better than no effort at all.

FINAL SCORE

3/10

Bad

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Review: "The Singularity"

The Shield of S.H.I.E.L.D

(This review contains spoilers!)

          The original 6 cast members took the spotlight on this week’s Shield, going on missions that, to be perfectly honest, weren’t that interesting.

          If that clever teaser poster is any indication, this is Part 2 of a crazy 4 part finale the showrunners have planned. If that’s the case, then this is absolutely the setup episode while the other 2 will do all the heavy lifting.

          First things first, Fitz and Simmons. Now that the two of them are a couple, there was lots of discussion tonight on where their relationship would go. That’s all fine and dandy, especially with characters we’ve been waiting on to pair up since Season 1, but it reminded me a lot of why I disliked Bobbi and Hunter so much. They talked so much about their relationship troubles that the overall mission got lost in all the chit-chat.

          The episode ended on a strange note, with Fitz and Simmons getting together and presumably going to have sex. Yay? I mean, it’s good that they’re furthering the relationship, but that’s the big end for this week? It didn’t help that it was really uncomfortable to look at.

          Over on the B-plot side of things, Coulson and May were chasing after Hive and Daisy, generally being the much more interesting storyline that gave way to a lot of excellent moments. We had that excellent fight scene with Lincoln and that girl who can duplicate herself, Coulson finally admitting he sees Daisy as the daughter he never had, and of course who could forget the Director of Shield’s shield?

          It all wrapped up with the huge revelation that Talbot’s been working behind the scenes locating all the secret Hydra bases, and it seems Hydra’s been defeated once and for all. As great as it was to finally have this huge enemy be taken down so swiftly, I can’t help but remember the words of Arnim Zola: Cut off one head, two more will take its place. So while Hydra may take a bit of a break, I wouldn’t rule out their return.

          So all in all, a decent episode for Shield, albeit a tad bit too much setup and not enough actually getting stuff done in my opinion. Here’s to next week!

FINAL SCORE

7/10

Good

Asagao Academy Review

YouTube Dating 101

(This review contains spoilers!)

          I have little to no experience with visual novels. The only one I’ve played is the first Ace Attorney game, and even then that can be argued as more of a point and click adventure game. I’ve watched a few on YouTube before, laughing at the silliness of games like Hatoful Boyfriend and Jurassic Heart. Asagao Academy was my first step into this weird world.

          The premise of Asagao is that you’re a young pink-haired girl by the name of Hana, who has come from a poverty-stricken beginning to the titular prestigious school. At the school, she meets Mai, her excitable best friend, as well as the Normal Boots club, which is where the true appeal of the game lies.

          See, the Normal Boots club (as well as their rivals, the Hidden Block club) is made up of completely real YouTube personalities specializing in videos based on games. Their personalities are very much embellished for the sake of the game, but it’s still clear that they’re the people you recognize from their respective channels.

          From the get-go, it’s clear that every single aspect of this game is put together with nothing but the most love and affection a game can have. The first-time developers at Illus Seed have really given it their all in crafting this game, and it shows. The sprite and background art is simply phenomenal, and the writing is beyond brilliant. It’s at the same time both hilarious and heartfelt, and it leaves you really feeling for the characters. It did have me wringing my hands in frustration at some points, however, as it seemed that Murphy’s Law was really in affect for this poor main character. No matter what happened, no matter how hard I tried, something bad would always happen to her. This grew incredibly frustrating, as there came a time when I had to sit back and think “If I continue, will the ending leave me feeling satisfied?”

          I especially liked all the small references to the real-life shows created by the datable NPCs, such as PeanutButterGamer’s Minecraft Hardcore series, ProJared’s Nuzlocke runs, and even some very obscure ones, such as Balrog’s old Nintendo 101 series. It’s little touches like these that really add to the experience, and show how much these developers cared about everything.

          As for the gameplay, it’s everything I assume to be in your average visual novel. Lots and lots of text, with you making decisions every now and again to change how the plot furthers. This may just be my opinion, but I found it extremely difficult to predict what each decision would lead to, and when dealing with the consequences of my actions, I often grew frustrated as I found it extremely hard to pinpoint exactly where I went wrong.

          To give you an example about how my various playthroughs went, I’ll explain. I decided to go through 4 different storylines before writing this review: PeanutButterGamer, Jirard the Completionist, JonTron, and finally ProJared. Here are my experiences with each.

          I found PeanutButterGamer the easiest datable bachelor, requiring the least decisions. While I really enjoyed the storyline, I couldn’t help but feel that the game was playing itself at times, and that it really didn’t need me to move along. Needless to say, I wound up getting the Best Ending without feeling like I really earned it. But still, the writing was excellent, and this remains my favourite of the storylines I played.

          Next up was Jirard, and I’m not sure what happened, but I completely bombed this one. The overall theme of the story was that Jirard, being the completionist that he is, was looking for an incredibly rare kitten figurine. So, naturally, my character goes looking for it, hoping to win his love. Upon finding it, she is presented with a choice. Either take the kitten and leave the Normal Boots club, or don’t. I paused and thought about which would be better for the goal I was trying to reach, and decided I wasn’t going to do it.

          The game, however, had other ideas. I had no choice but to take the kitten, which then proceeded to break no less than 5 minutes later. After that, I was on a one way train to the Worst Ending, having no idea how I arrived there or how to prevent it.

          So I shook this failure off and moved onto Jon’s playthrough. Unfortunately, this ended up being the same old story. I tried my hardest to make the best decisions, but the game took over at the most inopportune times, and I wound up once again leaving with nothing but a Bad Ending and complete frustration. I had no idea what I did wrong or how I could’ve fixed it, and I still don’t.

          But I was determined. The final playthrough on my quest was ProJared’s, and I needed to see that Best Ending one more time to feel like I’d accomplished anything. I took every precaution necessary, creating a save file at every single decision. I thought about each and every moment before clicking on anything. This was the most careful I’d been playing a game since playing Undertale. How’d it turn out?

          For a moment, it seemed like everything was going swell. I had won the competition and joined the Normal Boots club, just as I had done in the Best Ending for PBG’s playthrough. However, Jared’s has an extra little part towards the end you have to get through that I won’t spoil. Once we reached that point, for reasons I couldn’t figure out, everything came crashing down around me and I was left once again with a Bad Ending.

          No problem, I thought to myself. I’ll just use one of my save files and use a different decision. I went back and tried again, but somehow with a click of a button I wound up with the same story. I tried again. This time I had an even WORSE ending.

          Finally, I fixed a choice that ended up with me losing the tournament, but I wound up with a Good Ending. I still had one more save file I could try to see if that led to the Best Ending, but in my haste to get to it I accidentally saved over it with the Good Ending, so that was the end of that. I won’t go over what the decision that did me in was, but I can tell you that nothing in it had any indication that it would lead up to the very end. For all I know, it didn’t and I’d messed up far prior.

          So that’s Asagao Academy. A gorgeously put together game with amazing writing and art, but a frustrating difficulty curve with no real way of figuring out what you did wrong. Still, I enjoyed my time with the game, and I may go back and try some other runs some time. If you like visual novels or the YouTubers this game is based off of, I’d say it’s absolutely worth a look.

FINAL SCORE

7/10

Good

Ace Attorney Episode 4 Review

Wright vs. White

(This review contains spoilers!)

So we’ve reached episode 4, concluding the second case out of the four in the first game. Part of me feels like they showrunners are rushing a little too fast through the cases, but since I just now learned that the second half of the show will be comprised with cases from the second game (which I am mostly unfamiliar with), I guess the pacing is all right.

We rejoin Phoenix and Maya, after Phoenix has been framed for the murder of Mia Fey. The true (and completely obvious) killer Mr. White is on the stand, being completely and insufferably annoying whenever he’s on screen.

So how does the final episode of this arc do? Well, it feels more like an uphill climb than anything. The first half of the episode is nothing but what I assume to be tension building, having Edgeworth and White counter all of Phoenix’s arguments and contradictions. It doesn’t exactly make for entertainment, especially when you know how everything plays out.

Then, in a turn of events, Maya pulls out as many conveniences out of her bag of tricks as possible. Hey, remember she’s a supposed ghost medium? She can summon her sister, who has all the evidence Phoenix needs to win the trial! How lucky is that?

But still, even with how convenient everything turns out to be, watching Phoenix do what he does best, presenting the evidence and catching the killer with a loud “Objection!” is always a blast, especially with the anime’s improved visual style.

Speaking of visuals, what was with those weird polygonal CGI models on the crowd? We didn’t see them for more than a few seconds, so why bother going through the effort to render them in CG? Why not just paint them into the background or something? It’s not a problem with the episode, just something I found bizarre.

Anyways, all in all a decent episode for Ace Attorney. Now that we’re getting into the later, better cases from the first game hopefully things can finally start picking up.

FINAL SCORE

6/10

Okay

Ace Attorney Episodes 1-3 Review

Court is in session

(This review is spoiler-free!)

I’ve only played the first game in the Ace Attorney series (the one this anime is based on) and while I enjoyed my time with it, it didn’t stick with me like a lot of other games did. I enjoyed the high-energy feel, some of the cases were interesting, and the music was good, but ask me to recite one line of dialogue or give a character’s full name on the spot, I couldn’t tell you.

So I was going into this anime sort of a mixed bag. I wasn’t a huge fan of the series, per say, but I certainly didn’t dislike them. Plus, since it was based on the sole game I’d played, I figured I’d enjoy it more.

It sure didn’t start off well. Episode 1 is a mess by anyone’s standards, and it was clear the showrunners were trying to get through retelling the tutorial section of the game as quickly as possible. For some reason the characters all are listed by their Japanese names in the subtitles instead of the English (which was corrected in Episode 2). Finally, I really didn’t feel the stakes that I remember the case having back in the games.

Thankfully, as we moved onto the second case in Episodes 2 and 3, it’s clear that this was where the main work was put into. Although some things still don’t quite work (namely the witnesses April May and the purple suit guy who’s name escapes me), the show does a much better job of capturing the fast paced courtroom action from the games.

Still, sometimes the show goes a little too fast. Whereas the games gave you (as Phoenix) time to carefully figure out contradictions and plot out which evidence to use, this Phoenix needs to keep the show moving, so he has the deduction skills of a master investigator. It can be a little unbelievable at times, but still, this show makes little effort to be taken seriously. Confetti falls at the end of a successful case, after all.

As for the characters, they all behave pretty much as you remember them. Phoenix is the goofy lawyer, Maya is cute and perky, Edgeworth is the dark, brooding guy who’s really good at his job, and so on and so forth. I don’t consider them as fantastic and memorable as other people seem to, but I don’t mind spending time with them. It’s clear that the showrunners know that people love these characters, and are doing their best to portray them accurately.

So, all in all, is Ace Attorney worth your time? Right now, unfortunately, I’d say no. Unless you’re a fan of the games, all you’ll get is a sadly bland and dull court show. Hopefully it’ll pick itself up off the ground and I can change my recommendation in my end-season review, but for now, I’d say wait.

FINAL SCORE

5/10

Average

Space Patrol Luluco Episode 4 Review

It gets weirder

(This review contains mild spoilers!)

          So we’ve moved on to the second season of Luluco I guess? It’s probably more like the second story arc than anything, but whatever.

          We rejoin our heroes on a mission to destroy an asteroid before it crashes into the Earth. That’s really all there is to say. This episode feels more like 7 minutes of setup than anything.

          As always, the characters are the highlight, and we finally get a bit more development on Nova’s part. It’s clear that the writers are having a lot of fun pairing him with Luluco, especially when he sends her a message towards the end of the episode. It’s delightfully cheesy, and made me smile.

          On that note, I’m not really sure what they’re trying to accomplish with Midori yet. She seems sort of like the lazy one, but I don’t quite get that vibe from her. To me she sort of seems like the Peridot of the group, a sort of technologically savvy character with her own agenda.

          The episode ends with a reveal completely out of left field (as per the usual with this show) that I can’t wait to see them explore. Hopefully it won’t be discarded and this is something they’ll focus on more, but with Luluco, you really can’t tell.

          Something I didn’t mention in my other review was the opening and ending themes. While I find the opening to be obnoxious, but with nice visuals, the ending is absolutely delightful. It pieces together a wonderful mix of live-action pictures and photos of the characters, as well as a lovely little song that goes along the background. It really feels like the show is giving you a break after all the craziness that just happened, and I never miss it.

          So, all in all, this was a good episode, but it felt more like setup for the next story arc than anything. I’m excited to see where they go with it, but I wish the introduction had been handled a little better.

FINAL SCORE

7/10

Good

Space Patrol Luluco Episodes 1-3 Review

Fight for Justice!

(This review contains mild spoilers!)

Seeing as this is the first show I’ve watched from Studio Trigger, I really didn’t know what to expect going into this one. I know they did Kill la Kill, which a lot of people seemed to like, but it never really caught my attention.

So imagine my surprise going into this one and finding the anime equivalent of a Saturday morning cartoon, complete with all the zaniness and fun characters.

The anime is about Luluco, a young girl who joins the local Space Patrol after her father is rendered unable to continue his job in a way I dare not spoil. She is tasked with patrolling her school and searching for evil around every corner.

The first three episodes focus on her finding an app that is allowing students to cheat on tests. Luluco teams up with a fellow student and Space Patrol member named Nova, and the two work together to solve the case.

Unfortunately, aside from Luluco, the other characters leave a lot to be desired. Nova is the generic “cute boy the main character is after”, and from the looks of things by the end of the third episode, new member of the space patrol Midori is the “bad person trying to reform”. Hopefully their characters will improve over the course of the season.

I’d easily recommend Luluco to anyone looking for a short, funny anime to watch on a rainy day. The episodes all cap off at about 7 and a half minutes, so it’s not a big commitment or anything. It’s loud, fun, and absolutely worth your time.

FINAL SCORE

8/10

Great

We Bare Bears Review: “Rooms”

The Toilet of the Future

(This review contains spoilers!)

We Bare Bears episodes tend to fall under two different categories. There are the episodes focusing on the bears and them focusing on one specific problem, and there are the episodes focusing on their interactions with side characters. I’ve always found the former to be funnier, and this episode is thankfully one of those.

The plot is simple. Grizz, Panda, and Ice Bear decide to switch rooms after Ice Bear’s fridge tragically breaks down. Panda goes to Grizz’s room, Ice Bear goes to Panda’s, and Grizz draws the short straw, ending up in the fridge.

          As they stay in the rooms, each of them finds a dirty secret the others have been hiding. Ice Bear finds out that his brothers had a day out without him, Panda discovers Grizz made fun of him in an embarrassingly bad homemade action movie, and Grizz discovers a secret bathroom beneath Ice Bear’s fridge, complete with a Japanese toilet.

        Naturally, these discoveries lead to a lot of laughs. What’s less funny is what comes after. It goes as predictably as you can imagine: the bears confront each other, they start yelling, but then through some ridiculous mayhem (which I couldn’t possibly do justice, you have to see this one to believe it) they reconcile at the end of the episode.

          Fortunately, this doesn’t go on for too long, and the episode wraps up satisfyingly with the bears admitting that they each need their personal space and go back to their own respective rooms.

          It’s a shame that the show felt it had to go this cliché route, because if anything, We Bare Bears has shown time and time again that these brothers would go through thick and thin for each other. I feel like a lot more could be accomplished if they had just kept exploring and finding more secrets that the brothers were hiding.

          Still, it’s one of the better episodes in recent memory, lacking any kind of side character distraction. If you want to relax and have a laugh, this is one of the best episodes to turn to.

FINAL SCORE

8/10

Great

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Review: “The Team”

Shaking Things Up

(This review contains spoilers!)

One could argue that this whole season’s been leading up to this very episode. With the introduction of the Secret Warriors being such a huge plot point, it was inevitable we were going to get a big introduction for them.

The show opens with Daisy, Lincoln, Joey, and Yo-Yo (I can’t remember her real name for the life of me) storming the Hydra base, rescuing Coulson and the crew and even capturing Malick in the first few minutes! It never fails to amaze me how much this show always gets done in such little time.

Speaking of Malick, it felt fitting that his story ended here. We’ve known since last week he was going to be killed off, and when he lost his daughter I figured it was going to only be a matter of time. Still, he went out really well, and the show pulled the rug out from under us yet again with the reveal that while he was technically killed by Hive as predicted, it wasn’t done in person.

And now to address the elephant in the room: Evil Daisy. I can honestly say I didn’t see it coming, and I’m really excited to see how this plays out. The final few shots of her quaking up the base and trapping Coulson and the other inside were extremely well done, thanks to the visual effects and the fantastic performance of Chloe Bennett.

It’s funny to think how packed to the brim this episode was, especially compared to the lackluster “game-changing” episode from two weeks ago. In just 45 minutes, we got the Secret Warriors finally teaming up, then disbanding, as well as killing Malick, Fitz and Simmons getting together (at long long last!), Mack and Yo-yo’s relationship changing, and Lincoln being framed for being Hive’s spy. Since its kind of obvious now who the real spy is now though, I can imagine he’ll be back in action before too long.

I doubt this will be the last we’ve seen of the Secret Warriors, despite their apparent disbanding, but still, I was a little disappointed that all we got were less than 15 minutes of them working as a team on a mission. It would’ve been much more interesting to see them work together before this, and demonstrate how well they partner up, raising the stakes for when it all came crashing down in this episode.

But still, I’m happy with what we got. I’m still not sure if Shield will be able to top the epic two-parter Winter Finale we got this season, but if this episode is any indication, they sure will try.

FINAL SCORE

9/10

Amazing

The Jungle Book Review

The Jungle V.I.P

(This review contains minor spoilers!)

          

If you asked anyone which of their animated movies Disney would remake for live-action next, I can guarantee The Jungle Book wouldn’t be high on anyone’s list. How could it? There’s only one prominent human character in the story, with the rest of the cast being made of talking critters.

         

After falling flat on their faces with Maleficent, but knocking it out of the park with last year’s Cinderella, I was very cautiously excited for what Disney’s live-action animation adaptation department’s next project would be.

          

What I got was a resounding success on all fronts. Jon Favreau’s reimagining of The Jungle Book is the rare adaption that not only perfectly captures the spirit of the original, but also goes and does it one better.

          
Make no mistake, while the movie is marketed for children and is based off of an old classic, Favreau pulls no punches in telling the story with all the realistic brutality of a jungle. Think of it as baby’s first Lord of the Rings. Characters die, jumpscares seem to be around every turn, and you never feel that Mowgli is truly safe. However, the movie never crosses the line into being too much for kids, with many fun and slow scenes keeping the pacing in check.

         

The action never stops to take a breather, and it can get downright intense at times. This is in much part thanks to the phenomenal CGI work. At no point in this two hour movie did I ever stop and think “Oh yeah, none of this is real.” It’s that good. Baloo the bear looks as soft and huggable as you’d expect, and Shere Khan the tiger is even more menacing than the real thing you’d find at a zoo.

          

The real highlight of the movie is the characters. Bill Murray’s Baloo is somehow even better than the original, with a cute innocent feel matching some underlying strength. He never feels as goofy or silly as the original did. Instead, he’s more like a giant teddy bear that could still eat you whole if he wanted. Ben Kingsley and Lupita Nyong’o both do equally good jobs as Bagheera the panther and Raksha the wolf, mixing a stern exterior with a sort of tough-love mentor attitude. Scarlett Johansson makes a brief but memorable appearance as Kaa the snake, in an interesting move that changes the original character’s gender. It works really well, and her single scene is one of the best in the movie. This is also the first movie starring new actor Neel Sethi, playing lead protagonist Mowgli. He does well, especially considering all he had to work with was a green screen for the most part. You never feel like he’s reacting to a tennis ball on a stick. Instead, he blends perfectly into the animated world as if he was always there.

Finally, Idris Elba shows his stripes as villain Shere Khan, and is truly menacing whenever he’s on screen. Whereas the other characters seem cute and cuddly for the most part, you get no such feeling from the tiger. This beast is out for man blood, and it’s clear you’d best stay away.

However, the true star of the show is Christopher Walken in his turn as the giant ape King Louie. Walken steals every scene he’s in with his enormous presence, and his rendition of the classic song “I Wanna Be Like You” is a riot that will guarantee a smile from everyone in the audience. He doesn’t do much, but when he is on screen, I guarantee all eyes will always be on him.

Aside from Walken’s song, the movie also includes two others. Johansson sings Kaa’s song “Trust in Me” from the original, but sadly only over the end credits. It’s worth sticking around for, as it’s a mesmerizing take on the original that resembles something you’d hear from a Bond villain than from a talking snake.

Murray and Sethi also have a duet of the classic “The Bare Necessities”. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go over very well, and was one of the only disappointments in the movie for me. The two constantly sound like they’re trying to sing over each other instead of in harmony, and they only get about halfway through the song before starting from the beginning again. I suppose I’ll never know how to pick a prickly pear by the paw.

That’s the only real complaint I have with the film, as the rest are very nitpicky. I would’ve liked to see more of Johansson’s Kaa, especially to hear her perform her song in person, but I’m glad with what I got. I also felt that the final climax went on a tad bit longer than I would’ve liked, but again, for what it was it was good.

The Jungle Book is a perfect example of taking something that has a large chance of not working and doing it to absolute perfection. This is the kind of movie that makes kids fall in love with the art of film, and I hope we see more like it in the future.

Final Score

9/10

Amazing