--- title: Jon Favreau’s Jungle Book Is a Wild Tale for a Digital Age description: CGI animals talk, sing, saunter, slink and slither canonical: https://time.com/4293583/review-jungle-book-jon-favreau/ author: Stephanie Zacharek article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-04-14T10:59:53.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T16:44:33.799Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Review: Jon Favreau’s 'Jungle Book' Is a Wild Tale for a Digital Age og:description: CGI animals talk, sing, saunter, slink and slither og:url: https://time.com/4293583/review-jungle-book-jon-favreau/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5b9d8a0e465633ca/69888ef5f887dc5981e95743/jungle-book-disney-cgi-animated-movie-film-animals.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: jungle-book-disney-cgi-animated-movie-film-animals-jon-favreau og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Review: Jon Favreau’s 'Jungle Book' Is a Wild Tale for a Digital Age twitter:description: CGI animals talk, sing, saunter, slink and slither twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5b9d8a0e465633ca/69888ef5f887dc5981e95743/jungle-book-disney-cgi-animated-movie-film-animals.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Review: Jon Favreau’s _Jungle Book_ Is a Wild Tale for a Digital Age  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Apr 14, 2016 10:59 AM UTC  Jon Favreau’s Jungle Book is a wild tale for a digital age Jon Favreau’s Jungle Book is a wild tale for a digital ageDisney  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Apr 14, 2016 10:59 AM UTC Filmmakers can do so many terrible and excessive things with technology today. Why not use it to make animals talk, a noble pursuit if ever there was one? In director Jon Favreau’s spirited, lush adaptation of [_The Jungle Book_](http://time.com/4211337/super-bowl-jungle-book-trailer/)_—_based loosely on Rudyard Kipling’s stalwart fables, with dashes of the 1967 Disney version tossed in—computer-generated animals talk, sing, saunter, slink and slither around a live-action boy, Mowgli (Neel Sethi). This “man cub” has been raised by wolves, which are apparently a lot like ’70s Berkeley types when it comes to parenting: brimming with questions and quips, Mowgli is a precocious hippie child in red underpants. He’s not totally carefree, though. The meanest cat in the jungle, Shere Khan ([Idris Elba](http://time.com/4242849/idris-elba-matthew-mcconaughey-stephen-king-the-dark-tower/) supplies his velvety, malevolent purr), has vowed to kill him. The allies who gather round include the wise panther Bagheera (Ben Kingsley, in full master-thespian mode) and lover-of-life sloth bear Baloo (a fabulous Bill Murray—his voice sounds the way flannel pj’s feel). If it all sounds a little too calculated—it is. Yet somehow this _Jungle Book_ works, because Favreau has both a sense of humor and a sense of spectacle. Even in 3-D, the colors—a riot of jades, cobalts and singing-canary yellows—are vibrant. And where else can you see an obsessive-compulsive porcupine counting every stone he passes or a silky she-snake with a vocabulary of seductive, sinister sibilants (voiced by [Scarlett Johansson](http://time.com/4285689/scarlett-johansson-wage-inequality/), using every s in her name, and more)? She’s Eve and the devil rolled into one. The _Jungle Book_, the movie’s credits tell us, was made entirely in downtown Los Angeles. It may be an urban product, but there’s still wildness in its heart. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4293583/review-jungle-book-jon-favreau/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4293583/review-jungle-book-jon-favreau/"},"headline":"Review: Jon Favreau’s Jungle Book Is a Wild Tale for a Digital Age","datePublished":"2016-04-14T10:59:53.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T16:44:33.799Z","description":"CGI animals talk, sing, saunter, slink and slither","url":"https://time.com/4293583/review-jungle-book-jon-favreau/","keywords":["movies"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5b9d8a0e465633ca/69888ef5f887dc5981e95743/jungle-book-disney-cgi-animated-movie-film-animals.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Stephanie Zacharek","jobTitle":"Film Critic","url":"https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5b9d8a0e465633ca/69888ef5f887dc5981e95743/jungle-book-disney-cgi-animated-movie-film-animals.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"jungle-book-disney-cgi-animated-movie-film-animals-jon-favreau","caption":"jungle-book-disney-cgi-animated-movie-film-animals-jon-favreau","creditText":"Disney","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4293583/review-jungle-book-jon-favreau/","name":"Review: Jon Favreau’s Jungle Book Is a Wild Tale for a Digital Age"}}]}] ```