[ad_1]
Movie Updates
Sign up for myFT Daily Digest to be the first to know about movie news.
Nominally, according to its end credits, Jungle cruise is based on the 66-year-old Disneyland Boat Ride, a low-intensity, storyless, grandparent-friendly experience in which passengers walk past an assortment of animatronic animals as the skipper launches a flood constant puns and jokes about Christmas cookies. But, taking a meta-conceptual cinematic approach, this lavishly budgeted feature film is also, in a sense, based on another Disney-ride-to-film adaptation, Pirates of the Caribbean.
Like his copy of the buccaneer, Jungle cruise mix of period attributes (it takes place during WWII), exoticism, a sprinkle of supernatural CGI fairy dust and a very Disney taste for mechanic-based slapstick. Characters endlessly play with widgets to unlock stuff or activate pulleys and machines to escape baddies or steal things.
Emily Blunt stars as brave scientist Lily Houghton (there’s an ironic joke about people who are perpetually shocked to see a woman in pants somehow getting funnier due to excessive repetition). Lily is determined to find a flowering tree in the Amazon rainforest that can cure all manner of ailments, and trains her brother MacGregor (Jack Whitehall), another of Disney’s only gay characters (the coding is only obvious to adults. ). They are guided by Frank, Dwayne Johnson’s salted skipper.
Partly written by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the secret weapons of many Hollywood comedies (Bad santa claus; Crazy, stupid, love), it’s a much funnier and more dynamic movie than you might think. The extra lime in his caipirinha is the cast of an assortment of outstanding character cast in supporting roles, including Jesse Plemons, Paul Giamatti, and Édgar Ramírez as a heavyweight called Aguirre, the name rocking a feathered conquistador hat towards the classic by Werner Herzog in the Amazon. Aguirre, the wrath of God.
★★★ ☆☆
In cinemas around the world from July 30
Source link