Disney's Jungle Cruise (2021) feels like the studio's testing of the waters before releasing the upcoming fifth Indiana Jones movie. For a tonal and thematic mashup of films like The African Queen (1951), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Romancing the Stone (1984), and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), this isn't that bad. In fact, it's pretty entertaining.
The film is set in World War I-era Brazil, where the fearlessly adventurous Dr. Lily Houghton (played by Emily Blunt) and her meek brother MacGregor (played by Jack Whitehall) seek the guidance of the grizzled yet charismatic boatman Frank Wolff (played by Dwayne Johnson) on their quest to find a mythical tree with unique healing powers known as the Tears of the Moon. Complicating matters for the trio are an army of evil Germans headed by the cartoonishly devilish Prince Joachim (played by Jesse Plemons) and a cursed army of undead Spanish conquistadors. What follows is a light-hearted adventure film that traverses through plenty of familiar story-telling territory but with enough of the stars' wit and charm to keep this journey afloat.
Blunt and Johnson's onscreen chemistry is endearing to watch and is easily one of the highlights this film offers. Whitehall's character initially feels like a third wheel to Blunt and Johnson, but their shared dynamic proved to be quite endearing as the film progressed. The visual and thematic cues from classic adventure films like the aforementioned The African Queen, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Romancing the Stone are admirable, even if they are considerably Disneyfied for a family audience. There are also several action sequences, which, at best, are pretty exciting and emotionally gripping, and at worst, are over-produced CGI storms that look more like they belong in one of Disney's animated movies. This brings us to what greatly hinders this film from receiving a higher score.
As for negatives, the CGI effects are as clear as daylight, and despite the hefty $200 million budget, the effects ended up taking me out of the movie rather than immersing me in it. Also, the film's antagonists, Prince Joachim and Nilo Nemolato (played by Vincent D'Onofrio), are so outlandish that they belong in an animated movie. From a storytelling standpoint, for every mature risk that the story takes, it always second-guesses itself and undoes it within minutes. For instance, minor spoiler alert, after Frank suffers a fate that no one can realistically survive, he is alive and well by the next scene through a plot twist, which I shall not spoil here. This twist is a welcome one but feels like a cheat rather than a well-earned reveal. This occurs several times throughout the movie, and it becomes somewhat repetitive and safe in terms of emotional stakes.
In conclusion, Jungle Cruise is an easy and relatively breezy watch, mainly thanks to its three leads' charming chemistry. Is this flick worth a second shot through a sequel? Maybe, but it will require less reliance on expensive-looking visual effects and a more considerable emphasis on characters, and not second-guessing the nature of its emotional stakes.
Final Score: 7 out of 10
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