[FILM REVIEW - pre lockdown]
THE WORD ON
FILMS with Cam Williams CRUISING FOR A BRUISING
After a nightmare, you may wake up and reassure yourself by saying, ‘it’s only a dream’. During a film based on a Disneyland ride you may comfort yourself by saying, ‘it’s only based on a ride’. Prepare to say this a lot during Jungle Cruise. Disney continues to mine its theme parks for ideas and Jungle Cruise follows in the tradition of Pirates of the Caribbean, Tomorrowland and The Haunted Mansion. Yes, it’s someone’s job to sit on a ride with a notepad and figure out how to dramatise it; a task that fell to co-writers Michael Green (Blade Runner 2049), Glenn Ficarra (Focus) and John Requa (Bad Santa). If you’ve never been to Disneyland, the Jungle Cruise is a riverboat attraction where you sit in a little vessel and pass animatronic animals. The ride opened in 1955 when robot animals were kind of a big deal. But not so much as the decades wore on. The ride got a second life when the captains were allowed to perform a quasi-stand-up comedy routine on the boat full of dad jokes and glorious puns. Jungle Cruise now survives as part of
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Disneyland’s heritage and a genuine curiosity if you love to enjoy corny humour (I’ve been on the ride and it’s a delight). So how do you go from that to Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Emily Blunt on a boat? Get out the notepad!
Blunt’s usual charm is absent, and The Rock never gets a chance to flex his Rock-ness; it’s gobsmacking how much this film misunderstands the appeal of the people’s champion.
The irony of Jungle Cruise is that it’s synthetic re-creation of an action adventure ends up feeling like a spin on a rundown theme park ride
Set during World War I, a scientist (Blunt) and a captain (The Rock) go on a quest to find a flower with unlimited healing powers. In their way are ZE Germans (Jesse Plemons with a terrible accent), ancient curses, and poorly rendered digital animals. Jungle Cruise wants to be a lot of things: an adventure in the spirit of Indiana Jones but with a little of the old school romantic charm of The African Queen (1951) and the gusto of The Mummy (1999). Jungle Cruise is only a vision board of these influences, and has more in common with a fake plant. Everything is way too phoney for a setting – the god damn jungle – that’s supposed to be so tactile, vibrant, and alive. Director Jaume ColletSerra (The Shallows) lumbers through each action sequence with zero sense of awe or adventure. @bmamag
